News

GameSoundCon 2015

Every November, there is an event in Los Angeles that brings together a wide array of industry professionals dedicated to the sound of video games. Music composers, sound designers, VO artists, audio producers, music editors and more will gather at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles for GameSoundCon. GameSoundCon is the only event dedicated completely to video game sound. GSC offers seminars, classes, workshops, and lectures that cover all aspects of game sound, and provide much needed time for networking. Both beginners and pros will find items of interest with plenty of learning opportunities available.

The 2015 roster of speakers will include: Chance Thomas, Jason Graves, Dale Crowley, Laura Karpman, Peter McConnell, and Penka Kouneva - all music composers, Becky Allen - Audio Director and Composer at PopCap/EA, Paul Lipson - Audio Director for Microsoft, Andrew Allen - Lead Audio Researcher at UCSD, John Rodd - John Rodd Mixing, Richard Ludlow - Creative Director for Hexany Audio, Kristen Quebe - Senior Sound Designer for Riot Games, Jacquie Shriver - Sony Computer Entertainment, and more. You can get a full list of sessions here.

GameSoundConLogoWithControllerMaxQualityThis year we are exhibiting at the two day event. Having a booth onsite will give us a chance to interface with all the attendees and give them access to us directly. We will be there to explain what it is that Audio Perception does, and answer tech questions and consult with people in person. If you would like to attend, we are offering a code for $125 off the regular price admission. Just enter APERCEPGAME at checkout to get the discount applied. Hope to see you there. 

WorkFlows of the Pros - SCL Seminar

workflows of the prosOn August 26th, The Society of Composers and Lyricists presented “WorkFlows of the Pros”, an educational seminar in Los Angeles at the American Film Institute’s Mark Goodson Theater. Hosting the event was SCL’s Joel Douek, who is a very talented and successful composer in his own right. The guest speaker for the panel was Trevor Morris. Trevor is an acclaimed, Emmy award winning film and television composer. His film credits include Olympus Has Fallen, Immortals, Scorpion King: Book of the Dead, The Marine 2, The Hills Have Eyes 2 and many, many more. He also composed for the television series The Tudors. In addition, the panel included both David Knauer and Jason Atkinson of Audio Perception. The seminar was webcast in realtime for SCL members, and was also recorded for members to view online afterward.

Having worked with Joel on a previous SCL Seminar back in 2011, we were looking forward to participating in another. The primary focus of the seminar, “WorkFlows of the Pros”, was to present advanced compositional and signal work flows to attendees, whose technical knowledge and skills spanned a range from novice to advanced. One of the primary topics was that of a “split system”, which consists of one computer system for composing and a separate computer system for recording the final output into stems for delivery to the final dub mix of the film or television show. Other topics included session prep for scoring stage recording dates and a general discussion of deeper, more advanced DAW concepts and integrating Vienna Ensemble Pro Server. The discussion was somewhat agnostic toward DAW applications, and was more generalized in theory and practice.

The hall was full to capacity and all those in attendance seemed very interested during the entirety of the seminar, and were very enthusiastic about it afterward. All in all, the seminar was a resounding success and we were thrilled to be a part of it. If you are interested in joining the SCL, it’s a great organization offering valuable resources and networking opportunities for composers of all levels. You’ll also have access to archived video of previous seminars, which are always very insightful and educational.

thescl.com

AP's new electronic newsletter

We have been planning for quite some time now to release the Audio Perception electronic newsletter, and we are proud to say it is finally almost here. The plan is to send out the first issue at the end of September or the beginning of October. We are excited to finally have a way to connect with our clients to share information, thoughts, tips and more. It will also give our clients a chance to explore all of the services we offer, as we find that a lot of clients only know us for the service they hired us for, but don't realize all of the other great services we provide. Our goal is not to create a sales platform full of ads, but instead to have a place to connect with our clients on another level, opening a new channel for us to keep in touch. Some items we will have reoccurring every month, like the "Free stuff", "Tips and Tricks", "Client Spotlight", "News Stories" and our "Featured Service" sections as well as an area dedicated completely to iOS. We will also have articles that change each month sharing valuable, interesting or entertaining information, and a list of current events occurring in the audio industry. We will end it with a new column called "Studio Dynamics" an on-going monthly column dedicated to topics that will help you to understand your working environment, and create improvements that will make you more efficient, get better sounding results, and help you gain a complete understanding of your equipment and what you have to work with. Hope you enjoy.

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Randy Goodrum - Upgrades to new MacPro and Logic Pro X

Randy Goodrum“Bluer than blue, sadder than sad, you’re the only life this empty room has ever had. Life without you is gonna be, bluer than blue.” Or how about “Yeah it’s sad to belong to someone else, when the right one comes along.” Just a sampling of lyrics from singer, songwriter Randy Goodrum. With a knack for crafting beautiful melodies and poignant lyrics, Randy has been writing great songs for decades. Diverse artists like Anne Murray, Michael Johnson, England Dan and John Ford Coley, Chaka Khan, Tammy Wynette, Patti Austin, Gladys Knight, Reba McEntire, Alabama, Judy Collins, Ray Charles, and many, many more have recorded his songs. Randy has also collaborated with artists and groups like randyg2Steve Perry, Toto and El DeBarge. In addition, Randy is an artist in his own right and releases his own work from time to time.

Randy has been creating music with Logic Pro for many, many years, and he was finally ready for a major upgrade from his old aluminum MacPro tower. Before proceeding with the upgrade to a new MacPro cylinder model, Randy was in need of some guidance and assistance with all the steps necessary to get the new system up and running as smoothly as possible. To that end, Audio Perception’s Jason Atkinson assisted Randy via email and phone, making suggestions and answering questions in detail. Randy was unsure of what all would be needed for the upgrade, as well as what he would continue on with that was currently in use. Aside from the new MacPro he wanted, we discussed what audio hardware would be best to use and how to best utilize all the drives currently in his older MacPro computer. For audio hardware, he’d been using an Apogee Rosetta 800 and a Symphony PCI card. The Rosetta 800 is still an excellent audio interface and converter, he just needed to get an Apogee Symphony 64 Thunderbridge to continue using it with his new MacPro. A perfect solution since the Rosetta 800 was already well integrated into his studio environment and patch bays. We discussed data migration from his old Mac to the new MacPro using the Apple Migration Assistant, as well as best data backup practices and Thunderbolt connections and daisy-chaining. In addition, we also discussed options for the continued use of the four drives currently residing in his old aluminum MacPro.

(Go here for our recommendation on a SATA to Thunderbolt multi-drive chassis solution)

With the help of our email and phone correspondence, Randy was able to get his new MacPro up and running on his own. Thrilled with the new setup, Randy is back to work crafting more incredible songs.

RandyGoodrum.com
Randy Goodrum - wiki
Songs written by Randy Goodrum - wiki

ALIBI-Hunny Bunny Track Used In Purina Beneful Commercial

Beneful LogoYes, I want to eat!,” is what the cute little dog says with a New York accent, as he’s jumping up and down awaiting a delicious meal of Purina Beneful Chopped Blends in a national television commercial. alibi music library logoAccompanying the visuals is an instrumental track composed and recorded by Audio Perception’s Jason Atkinson. Licensed through the Alibi Music Library, “Hunny Bunny” is a bouncy, piano driven instrumental that fits perfectly with the energy of the commercial. purina beneful commercialThe music plays through the entirety of the 30-second advertisement. “It’s always exciting hearing music I’ve written show up in a commercial like this,” says Jason, who continues to compose more tracks for Alibi Music as well as other music libraries. Click here to listen to the “Hunny Bunny” track or click here to see the commercial.

Facebook - alibimusiclibrary
Alibi Music Library - Track Details

Jack Casady's New Avid M10 Desk

Jack CasadyBassist, rockstar, and all around cool guy. That’s Jack Casady. Jack is considered one of the foremost bass guitarists of the rock music era, best known as a member of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna. He started in Jefferson Airplane in 1965 and was with the band till they broke up in 1972. During that time, he played on all seven of their studio albums, including the singles "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit." Casady and former Airplane guitarist, Peter Kaukonen, formed Hot Tuna in 1969, and they still perform to the present day. The group has morphed over the years from an acoustic blues group, to an electric boogie band, to a rampaging metal act and back again. Casady's appetite for playing also led him to do extensive moonlighting during his Airplane tenure. Not only did he perform live on stage with Jimi Hendrix in 1968, he also played bass on the Jimi Hendrix song "Voodoo Child," from Electric Ladyland. He occasionally played with other key San Francisco bands like Grateful Dead and Country Joe and the Fish. Casady, along with the other members of Jefferson Airplane, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Jefferson Airplane early 1966It was time for Jack to upgrade his home studio, but he had a problem. He was planning to remove his obsolete Digidesign Control 24 and replace it with a shiny new Avid S6 M10 console. The desk he has is an older KK audio desk that was custom fit for the Control 24 and the opening was too narrow for the new Avid M10. Since the desk was designed to fit a Control 24, it had the big open area in the rear of the desk with a wood speaker bridge all the way across the top. The easy solution would have been to get a new desk to fit the Avid S6 perfectly. Here is where the problem comes in. Jack Casady DeskJack's desk has a great amount of sentimental value to him and he did not want to give it up. After the success of our Digidesign Control 24 to Avid S3 desk conversion we did earlier this year, Audio Perception was called in to solve the dilemma. We removed the strip of wood across the front of the desk and we cut it in half down the middle. We then built a new center piece of wood decking that extended the width of the desk to fit the new console. Next we reinforced the underside of the console deck. Lastly, we cut back the speaker shelf to allow access to the much flatter and deeper M10. Where the speaker deck was cut back, we used the piece of wood taken from the front of the desk to fashion side moulding that matched the desk exactly.

Jack is now back to work in his studio with his new AVID Pro Tools 12 and S6 M-10 console. He is excited to be working again and even happier that he got to keep the desk that means so much to him.

jackcasady.com

Misha's Gishwes

gishwhes2015 logoGISHWHES, which stands for the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen, is a 5-time Guinness World Records breaking scavenger hunt hosted by Misha Collins that you can compete in from anywhere in the world. Thousands of participants from more than 100 countries build their own teams and, for one week, they acquire items on a fun, inspiring and sometimes jaw-dropping scavenger hunt list. The items are “captured” as videos or images and uploaded to the GISHWHES website to memorialize the annual experience and to supply the judges with something to judge. The more sublime and creative a submission is, the more points awarded. Items range from the sweet and touching (perform a sock puppet show at a children’s hospital), to the weirdly sublime (a fully dressed storm trooper cleaning a pool next to a sunbather), to the absolutely impossible (get the word “gishwhes” written on something in space), a team actually pulled that off! "We try to create a list that is challenging, thrilling, and absurd. We like to see items that make us tear-up and laugh out loud. We like to have participants break out of their comfort zones, re-awaken their inner artist, and do a bit of good in the world." The team that scavenges the most items, with the highest quality of submissions, joins Misha Collins on an all-expenses paid trip to an exotic locale. Prior winners journeyed to Rome, a haunted castle in Scotland, an island off the coast of British Columbia, and a pirate ship in Croatia. This year the winning team will be joining Misha and his favorite spider monkey in Costa Rica.

Misha Collins1Misha Collins is best known for his role as the Angel Castiel on the CW television series Supernatural. In addition, Misha has been seen on Nip/Tuck, CSI: NY, Without a Trace, Monk, NCIS and ER. With all his TV experience, Misha is no stranger to the voice-over mic. That’s a good thing since he had two days’ worth of dialogue to record for this year’s GISHWHES hunt. Along with all the scavenging fun, Misha has added another dimension to this year’s hunt. Through a phone-based voice tree that contestants navigate, they must choose an answer (the leaves) to the questions (the branches) posed throughout the hunt. For each "branch" (a question, statement or problem) there would typically be three to five "leaves" (the answers). You are then directed to a new branch depending on which leaf you choose. All of the branches and their numerous leaves had to be recorded, edited, labeled and output in a final form for the phone system. With hundreds of audio files, we had to be very careful and organized in our file management and naming. With the many hours of final edited and output audio completed and loaded up, the phone tree will be a great, new challenging and intriguing addition to the hunt.

gishwhes.com
Misha Collins - Twitter

Trevor Wayne Howard Primacoustic Install

Busy TV music composer, Trevor Wayne Howard, needed a new space to work in, so he enlisted the help of Audio Perception to get things done right.  Trevor first met the AP crew at a Society of Composers & Lyricists event we co-hosted back in 2011.trevor1Trevor's work can be heard on shows like Drop Dead Diva, The Event, Men in Trees, Bones, Judging Amy, and many more. Recently, he has been busy working on a few new projects and needed a better space to work than the room he was in. What Trevor needed to take his work to the next level was a more accurate acoustic environment and an interior look he would be proud of when clients came in.

Trevor built a room out and called us in to treat it. The room was a standard rectangle room with drywall walls and ceiling and a wood floor. As you can imagine, a space like this needs careful treatment to assure that the reflections are tamed while being careful not to make it too dead. We first designed the treatments, based around Primacoustic products, in a 3D program so Trevor could see the layout before we moved forward.  After we got the go-ahead to start, we installed broad band absorbers of various thicknesses, as well as bass traps, diffusers, and a ceiling cloud. trevor2With all of the products in place, we tuned the room to make sure his mixes were accurate and clear.

Trevor is now working every day in the new space and is thrilled with the results. You can see a great video of the install as it progressed and view more photos of the completed project here.

Trevor Wayne Howard - Website - sicmusic.com

Vie 2 Cycling Sounds Amazing

And now for something a bit different.... Audio Perception is known for their work in the audio realm, but what about the fitness world? Vie 2 Cycling's owner Chuck Schwartz set out to design the best sounding spinning studio in Los Angeles. After spending countless days working out in gyms with bad sound systems, Chuck decided to open his own spinning gym, and was inspired to create a fitness space with the best sound, as well as the most hi-tech equipment. This was a big challenge since a gym is not known as the most acoustically sound space to work in. In addition, the new location had an adjoining wall with another business, and with the large speakers and subwoofer planned, Chuck wanted to make sure that the neighbors would not be bothered.

For the first phase of the project, we had to test the wall between the two spaces to see how much sound was getting through and what frequency the leakage was at. To do this, we had to set up a speaker system in one room and then place mics in the adjoining business. We played a series of test tones and music to measure the leakage. We analyzed the data that was captured and created a report that Chuck gave to his builder with requirements, vie2cspecs, and suggestions on the construction that would be required to give the amount of sound reduction he was looking for. We also consulted on wall treatments and the sound system requirements. For phase 2, AP designed a wall panel treatment layout in our 3D software, so Chuck could see what the room would look like when completed. Then, with the design approved, we built 40 custom wall and ceiling panels, as well as two corner bass traps. Lastly, we helped install the panels and the massive sound system consisting of four Electro Voice ETX-12P speakers, and one Electro Voice ETX-15SP subwoofer.

With the sound system and panels in place, Chuck moved forward installing multiple video screens, custom lighting, and finally, the latest in high tech spinning bikes equipped with performance consoles. The bike’s console monitors the ride and displays performance specific to that person. In addition to displaying more standard data such as time, distance, cadence (pedal revolutions/minute), total calories and heart rate, these bikes and consoles also measure and display real power output in watts. All of this data is displayed on huge video screens for all 30 bikes! The data is also stored and viewable on their website.

vie2cycling.com

What is Brain Chase?

brainchaselogo2Brain Chase is a five-week online summer learning challenge for 2nd–8th graders that unfolds as a treasure hunt worthy of any detective. Based on a series of animated shorts, the educational challenge will culminate in a $10,000 cash prize! Kids complete an hour of daily learning activities through their curriculum partners to unlock animated episodes of an original adventure story.  The episodes contain clues to the hidden resting place of a mysterious golden mechanism buried somewhere in the world, inside is a key to a safety deposit box holding a $10,000 cash prize. brainchaseBe the first to pinpoint the treasure’s location, and you’ll soon be boarding a flight to that destination where you’ll dig it up for yourself!

Brain Chase's creator, Allan Staker, contacted Audio Perception Post to record the voiceover for two of the main characters in his online adventure story, Mae Merriweather and Tate Grayson.  The VO was recorded by our associate Tad Chamberlain at the AP studio in Downtown Los Angeles.  The voices were first demoed back in February of this year, with the final audio recorded over 10 hrs.  As with most animations, the animators will take the edited and completed audio and design the visuals around that. You can view some of the work in the video below.

"Brain Chase began as a simple conversation between two parents" says Heather and Allan Staker, the creators. "We set out to design a program that would keep our own five children sharp over the summer, but then we decided it would be a lot more fun to involve the entire world. Now our mission is to enrich children everywhere, one global summer treasure hunt at a time. Ever since we launched Brain Chase in 2013, we’ve loved planning adventures for Mae Merriweather and her friends, traveling the globe to bury treasures and hearing from the kids who have entered school in the fall fresh and confident thanks to Brain Chase!  Staying sharp over the summer takes honest hard work. But we also believe that a little effort can go a long way. We believe that summer educational activities should be fun. We think there’s something magical about animations, decoder rings, exotic travel, hidden clues, and buried treasure."

BrainChase.com
YouTube - Brain Chase
Twitter - BrainChase

A Studio In An RV

rv2A composing and writing studio on wheels? That’s what Phil Rorex wanted to setup in a class A motorhome! Audio Perception’s David Knauer and Jason Atkinson first met Phil Rorex and his wife, Janet, at the 2013 Taxi Road Rally. They stopped by the Audio Perception exhibitor table at the Taxi event, and struck up a conversation about the feasibility of their plans. Since Phil and Janet are both songwriters, they wanted to set up a writing studio in a motorhome that they would also be living in on the road, in various locations. But first they needed to sell their house. Some time went by, and with their house finally sold, it was time to commence with planning and installation of the rolling studio. David worked with Phil to plan the layout and wiring, and Jason, with the help of AP's lead wire tech Steve Marlowe, tackled the install. Needless to say, it was a bit of a challenge performing the install in quite limited space.

The motorhome had some customizations, which included a desk along the living room driver side that moves in and out with the wall section. With extremely limited room, much of the gear needed to reside underneath the large desk, which included a custom made quiet rack for drives and a mac mini, as well a regular rack for various midi sound modules, midi interface and UPS battery backup. In addition, there was accessible storage under the desk for a CD player/AM FM stereo, printer, and record player as well as storage for several guitars. There is also a metal keyboard stand on casters with a small hydraulic lift engine to raise or lower the 88 note keyboard controller and Presonus Studio Live 16 channel digital mixer. The hydraulic keyboard stand had to fit in between the top of the items under the desk and the bottom of the desk itself. The main reason for this is that the entire wiring rig needs to collapse along with the driver side wall for making the motorhome mobile. When the expanded walls are retracted, the interior of the bus gets much smaller. An interesting part of the install involved a solution for cabling that connects the keyboard and mixer, which reside on a moveable metal keyboard stand, to the equipment under the desk. To accomplish this, the bulk of cable, which included midi, audio and power, was carefully tied into a snake partially tied to the stand, and a flexible portion extending from the keyboard to underneath the desk, with enough slack that can drop down when the keyboard is tucked under the desk, and lift upward to give the necessary length to pull the keyboard stand out. There is also a subwoofer placed inside a lower cabinet that Phil just opens when using the writing rig. The only visible equipment on top of the desk are the iMac that he uses to write with, using Logic Pro X, the studio monitors, various iPads and drum machines, and a large LED television connected as second display for the iMac.

Overall, the motorhome writing studio turned out great, and Phil and Janet are both excited to get back to creating music. Since it's completion they have moved around a few times, and at each stop, they just open up the sides of the motorhome, and the studio was there ready to go. They now have the freedom to go anywhere they want to work in their true rolling studio.

James Covell's New Mac Pro & MOTU AVB Audio Interfaces

JamesCovellFilm and television composer James Covell upgraded his composing studio to a new MacPro and the brand new AVB audio hardware from MOTU. James is a graduate of the renowned USC Thornton Scoring for Motion Picture and Television program and has been composing for well over 35 years. With credits including Left Behind: JamesCovell3The Movie, Last Shot with Judge Gunn, Santa with Muscles, The List, A Dennis the Menace Christmas and many more, James has had a busy career so far.

This year, James was ready for some major upgrades, including a 2013 MacPro, the just released MOTU AVB 112D and an 8M, and a new Presonus Central Station for monitor control. Audio Perception’s Jason Atkinson assisted James with the integration and configuration of all the new gear. The new MOTU AVB audio interfaces are based on ethernet networking technology and add quite a bit of flexibility and multiple interfaces act as one large interface. Two interfaces can be daisy chained, while more than two require the new JamesCovell2MOTU AVB Switch for networking up to five interfaces.

With all the new gear up and running, the new MacPro will provide much more CPU muscle for his composing in MOTU Digital Performer 8, and the MOTU 8M and 112D will provide the necessary inputs from the various sample host computers in his studio. James is thrilled with the power and flexibility of the upgrades and is busy working on new projects.

JamesCovell.com
IMDB - James Covell
motu.com/avb

Peter Boyer of Propulsive Music Updates Studio

Jurassic World, Minions, Inside Out, Amazing Spider-Man, Skyfall, Cars 2 and Super 8 - just a sampling of an impressive list of orchestration work from  Boyer. Peter, who came to Audio Perception through our association with the Society of Composers and Lyricists, is a very successful orchestral composer with a long catalog of works. He’s also been in demand for orchestration work with some of Hollywood’s biggest composers, including Michael Giacchino, Thomas Newman, James Horner, Mark Isham and Harry Greyson-Williams, to name a few. A talented composer in his own right, Peter’s major work, Ellis Island: The Dream Of America, has had over 150 live performances since 2002. His most successful composition to date, Ellis Island combines orchestra and actors to celebrate the experience of American immigrants.

Peter contacted Audio Perception for some assistance with improving and expanding his composition setup and to get some basic training with other DAW applications. Peter has been using MOTU Digital Performer for many years, but because he does orchestration work for such a wide variety of composers, he wanted to get more familiar with Avid Pro Tools and Apple Logic Pro X. Peter also wanted assistance in setting up an extensive orchestral palette using Vienna Ensemble Pro Server on multiple Apple computers. AP’s Jason Atkinson was called in for assistance with all DAW related work, and he and Peter have been meeting regularly for technical assistance and training. Peter also wanted to add some acoustic treatment products to his writing room and add a subwoofer to help fill out the low end. AP’s David Knauer was brought in for planning and implementing the sound treatments, which consisted of products from Primacoustic, as well as installing and dialing in the subwoofer. Peter is very happy with all the work done thus far, and Audio Perception continues to work on improving his composition setup and workflow.

Scott Weiland - Lavish Studio

stp logo1Everyone knows Scott Weiland as the singer from Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, but now he is also known as the owner of Lavish Studios in Burbank, CA.  Lavish Studios got started in 1997 as Scott’s private studio, and it has remained that way up until 2014 when Scott decided to do a major equipment upgrade and open Lavish to the public as a commercial recording facility. scottw2He purchased a 1977 MCI 28 Input / 32 Bus JH528b mixing console that came out of the very famous Nola Recording Studios in New York City.  Sitting atop the Steinway building, as it had for over 70 years before closing its doors, Nola Recording was host to some of the greatest artists that ever stepped in front of a microphone. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Judy Garland, and Frank Sinatra are just some of the icons to call Nola home through the years.  Nola was also where every sound you heard on Sesame Street was recorded.

scottw3The console was purchased new in 1977 and was at Nola till Scott moved it out West late last year.  Glenn Coleman of  www.colemanaudio.com , meticulously took care of the console at Nola from 1983 to 2013. The console was in great condition for a desk almost 40 years old, but as will happen when you move something like that such a distance, the console was in need of some maintenance when it arrived in LA.  Lavish's head engineer, Rocco Guarino, called in Audio Perception to go through all the channels and work out the bugs.  We checked the signal path for each channel and removed the ones that were an issue.  Then we took the problem channels back to our shop, a few at a time, to get them in top working order.  Slowly the console was brought back online, till the whole thing was up and running solid.

Lavish StudiosThe studio started out with an idea I had,” says Weiland. “Just the general concept of creating a vibe. On the technical side, things grew from that point.”  Adding an MCI 528 console to the existing NEVE BCM-10 sidecar w/ 1066 Mic Preamps/EQ and the Studer A827 2″ 24-Track tape machine served to set the room apart from others, along with a bevy of rare, vintage, and custom outboard gear seldom seen in studios these days.  Lavish Studios is open to anyone who wants a creative space with both vibe and world-class recording fidelity.

LavishStudiosLA.com

NAMM wrap up

nammWith the start of the new year comes the 2015 Winter NAMM Show. It’s the time of year when many attendees bask in the mild Southern California winter season after leaving behind freezing temps back home. We look forward to running into old friends and making new ones. There are so many people in attendance - you never know who you’ll run into. NAMM 2015 Jason David Lisa Loeb Bob ClearmountainSpeaking of running into old friends, while wandering the endless aisles, we ran into our friend Lisa Loeb, who introduced us to her friend, Bob Clearmountain.

Right across from Disneyland, the Anaheim Convention Center once again hosted the big four day event. Over 1,600 exhibitors, manufacturers from almost every continent attended. Being a mix of traditional and cutting edge, there were a large variety of brass, woodwind, strings and percussion manufacturers showing their latest instruments, as well as music technology developers showing their latest gear and software. The 2015 NAMM Show did not disappoint. Avid announced Pro Tools 12 as well as the free Pro Tools First, along with new Cloud Collaboration tools. MOTU announced the 112D audio interface, based on the AVB networking technology. The 112D offers extensive digital audio I/O and expandability via other AVB interfaces. Moog Music, Inc. announced plans for a limited manufacturing run of three of their most sought after large format modular synthesizers - the System 55, System 35 and the Model 15. Universal Audio showed their new Thunderbolt Apollo series audio interfaces along with their UAD Software v8, which adds many new features, as well as some new plugins. Spectrasonics announced the long awaited Omnisphere version 2, which has a release date of April 30th. Korg, in conjunction with Arp Instruments, revived the classic Arp Odyssey analog synth. With a slightly smaller footprint and some new modern features, it is designed to replicate the vintage sound of the original Odyssey duophonic synthesizer. nammNAMM also had the annual TEC awards, recognizing the achievements of audio professionals and legendary musicians and songwriters. This year, the TEC Les Paul Award was given to Todd Rundgren.

The NAMM Show is about more than just the musicians and newest instruments or gear. A major focus of the event is music education in public schools and for promoting ways to bring music to kids of all ages. There were also classes and seminars for music store owners, managers, promoters, and other people in the music business. NAMM also cares about your health with free hearing screenings to make sure you haven't blown yourself out with years of loud speakers. It was another excellent NAMM Show this year. We at Audio Perception are already looking forward to next year!

namm.org
NAMM Show 2015

Tab Sound Design Updates Facility

tabsoundTucked away in West Hills, California, Tab Sound Design is owned and operated by William Tabanou. Catering to a wide variety of film and music clientele, Tab Sound Design is a full-service professional audio post production facility. Audio post clients include Sony Pictures, History Channel, Lakeshore Entertainment, O Entertainment, and many more. Music clients have included Avril Lavigne, Michelle Branch, Silversun Pickups, The Smithereens, and Coolio. In addition to running the studio, William is also a sound designer, mixer, music producer and musician.

A couple years ago, the Tab Sound Design studio facility had an updated construction buildout designed by our associate, Jerry Steckling. The updated buildout looks very professional and sounds great. But it was now time to upgrade the equipment. Audio Perception was brought in for the new equipment integration. The studio is Pro Tools HD based, but it was time to make the jump to Avid Pro Tools HDX and upgrade to the newest Apple MacPro computer. In addition, William’s old Digidesign Control 24 control surface would be replaced with a new Avid S3 control surface. The S3 is much more compact and the desk had been custom built to the exact dimensions of the Control 24. While the S3 would fit in the desk where the Control 24 used to reside, it did not look very presentable due to all the open space that used to be taken up by the Control 24. Custom Control 24 to S3 Desk ConversionAudio Perception’s David Knauer came up with an ingenious way to reuse the space left behind the Control 24 removal. David designed a custom wood fitting that was fabricated by our good friends at AZ Studio Workstations to the dimensions of the Control 24, with cutouts to house the S3 controller, as well as a Dangerous ST Remote and a set Dorrough Meters for surround level metering. The custom wood fitting worked great and looks like it had always been part of the desk. Will is thrilled with all the updates and is very happy to be up and running with all the new gear.

TabSoundDesign.com

U.K. Transplant, Ryan Hope, in His New L.A. Studio

ryanhopeAfter accumulating an incredible collection of vintage gear, the kind of gear electronic music creators drool over, Ryan Hope was ready to get it all wired up, integrated and operational in a cool, creative space. Ryan, who is British born, recently relocated to Los Angeles. He’s been an in demand video and film director for many years in the U.K., working on video projects for clients such as Absolut, Pharrell Williams, George Michael, Beats By Dre, Guinness and Hugo Boss, to name a few. He recently directed the Sam Smith music video for Lay Me Down. With his directorial career firmly planted and growing, Ryan wanted to pursue another of his creative passions - electronic music composition.

Not one to just settle for software plugin emulations of classic analog gear, he wanted the real thing. So Ryan scoured eBay and purchased many cool vintage pieces such as several classic Roland items - Juno 106, Jupiter JP-6, SH-101, TR-707, TR-727, TR-808 and TR-909. Wow! Other vintage items include a Sequential Circuits Pro One, a Yamaha TX7 and an Oberheim Matrix 1000. Really cool vintage analog gear. Add to that some modern modular synths from Pittsburgh Modular (Cell 90) and Blue Lantern Modules, and you’ve got all the bases covered (pun intended)! Ryan also likes mangling sounds in the analog domain, so he accumulated some outboard signal processing gear that lets him come up with unique and original sounds. Those tools include an Eventide H8000, Roland RE-201 and RE-501, TC Flashback X4, Moogerfooger MF-101, Thermionic Culture Vulture, DBX Disco Boombox (vintage subharmonic generator), and various boutique effects pedals. To top it off, there is a Universal 2-1176 limiting amplifier, an Avalon 737 microphone preamp and a Mojave Audio MA300 tube mic. For audio I/O, we set him up with 32 channels of Apogee Symphony I/O and the Symphony 64 Thunderbridge, all running in Ableton Live on his quad core i7 Apple iMac. Everything is in patch bays for convenience.

Needless to say, this setup is really cool and Ryan has been thrilled with it all coming together. He’s been knocking out a lot of great tracks and having a lot of fun to boot!

ryan-hope.com
Vimeo - RyanHope
rsafilms.com - Ryan Hope - Commercials
Sam Smith - Lay Me Down - Directed by Ryan Hope

Notre Dame High School adds NewTek TriCaster

ndhs1At Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California, Audio Perception has been providing support for the TV production department since 2002.  We keep all of the Apple iMac based Final Cut Pro student lab stations running in the NDTV classrooms and handle tech support for the instructor, Elisia Harkins. We also provide support for their three camera digital video stage and the mobile system used to shoot live sports and events around the school. Lastly, we handle the computer clean up and prep before the start of each new school year. This year, a kind NDHS alumnus generously donated a complete NewTek TriCaster broadcast system to the NDTV class. tricasterThe TriCaster is a very advanced and professional A/V broadcast solution that will provide the NDHS (do you mean NDHS, right??) students with real-world broadcast experience and deliver excellent quality video for streaming and archival use. The TriCaster will be configured as a portable rig to be used for recording all home games for all sports programs and all special events at the school, including the graduation ceremonies. All games and events will be broadcast in real-time over the internet and, afterwards, all footage will be available on the school website, as well as on all social media that NDHS utilizes. Audio Perception’s video specialist, Brett Collins, was brought in for the TriCaster integration and basic training. The system was setup on a portable AV cart that students can easily transport around the campus as needed.

With the TriCaster setup and running, Elisia Harkins and her students are excited to start using the new system.  So far they have used the TriCaster to record and broadcast various sporting events and this year’s graduation ceremony and the students now have the experience of using a truly professional digital video system.

ndhs.org
NDTV

The 2014 Taxi Road Rally!

TaxiThis past November 6-9th, Audio Perception attended the 2014 Taxi Road Rally at The Westin Los Angeles Airport Hotel. We had a great time last year at the 2013 event and we met a lot of talented attendees. This year we were looking forward to our second turn as a Road Rally exhibitor. Once again, scattered throughout the hotel are many, many meeting rooms where a long list of Driver’s Ed classes are held. Driver’s Ed classes, which are classes that target a specific topic relevant to the art and business of writing and selling songs, are one of many benefits of attending a Taxi Road Rally. Driver’s Ed teachers include Ronan Chris Murphy, Steven Memel, Mike Greene, Michael Lloyd, Jan Linder-Koda, Jai Josefs, Gilli Moon, Fett, Michael Lloyd, Hans Dekline, Clare McLeod, Ralph Murphy and more. Topics included music licensing, production tracks and music libraries, songwriting, building websites, singing, marketing, music production and mixing, networking, technology, software, mastering, and much more. The 2014 Taxi Lifetime Achievement Award honoree was Maureen Crowe. Maureen has had a long and successful career in music supervision. She co-founded the Guild of Music Supervisors. Taxi 2014Michael Laskow sat down with Maureen for the Keynote interview, where she shared her wisdom and many years of experience in music supervising with a packed room.

This year, in addition to our exhibitor table, David Knauer and Jason Atkinson of Audio Perception signed up to host their first Driver’s Ed class. We hosted “Studio Tech for the Songwriter, Musician or Studio Owner,” covering topics such as power management, data storage and backup. For power management, David covered topics including AC problems (lighting, low voltage, spikes/surges, grounding, and noise), line conditioning/noise suppression and voltage regulation, balanced power, and battery backups.  For data storage and backups, Jason covered topics including backup types (cloning, incremental backups, archival), software for backups, and a recommended backup plan. Our first Driver’s Ed class went really well and all attendees seemed very enthusiastic about the information they had learned. We look forward to more Taxi Road Rallies and more opportunities to share important information with the talented and creative songwriters and artists in attendance.

For more information, please visit taxi.com.
Taxi Road Rally 2014

AES Comes Back to Los Angeles!

aesbanner2014It’s October again in the City of Angels and we’ve survived the long dog days of summer. With fall comes cooler weather and the 2014 Audio Engineering Society Convention. We at Audio Perception have been looking forward to both. It’s been 12 years since L.A. last hosted the AES Show, which was held at the Downtown L.A. Convention Center, Oct. 9th through the 12th. The AES show is four days of manufacturers and developers meeting under one big roof to discuss and debate the current and future status of the audio industry and to show off new gear. There were many notable events and highlights of the 2014 AES show. One such highlight was legendary producer and engineer Alan Parsons’ keynote address during the Opening Ceremonies, discussing the future of High Resolution Audio (should that be capitalized??). Another highlight was AES Raw Tracks, featuring discussions about legendary artists and songs with the engineers involved, including Fleetwood Mac Rumours (Ken Caillat - engineer), David Bowie (Ken Scott - engineer), Beach Boys Pet Sounds (Mark Linett - engineer), and The Red Hot Chili Peppers (Andrew Scheps  - engineer). And yet another highlight, Chicks in the Mix, was an all-female panel discussing the female experience in the music business, moderated by Chris Lord-Alge and featuring Lisa Loeb (singer/songwriter), Amy Burr (Larrabee Studios Manager), Emily Lazar (singer for September Mourning), AES 2014Marcella Aracia (recording and mixing engineer), and Brenda Russell (singer/songwriter). This is only a small sampling of the incredible variety of panels and discussions at the convention.

Notable product introductions at the 2014 AES Convention include the Avid S3, a more compact, lower-priced control surface based on the S6 technology. The S3 provides users with the versatility, efficiency and accelerated workflow required to deliver projects on time in high-demand production environments, all in a compact and affordable package. Universal Audio unveiled the new UAD-2 Satellite Thunderbolt DSP accelerators. Designed to harness the high-speed bandwidth of the Thunderbolt specification, these compact DSP boxes are offered in QUAD and OCTO models, to greatly enhance mixing on Thunderbolt equipped desktop and laptop computers. Solid State Logic introduced the XL-Desk (a pedigree of the larger format AWS consoles), a mid-scale, compact form, analog mixing desk and DAW controller. AES 2014The XL-Desk is a 24 x 8 analog mixer with up to 40 inputs of analog summing and 18 slots of 500 series expandability, at a more affordable price point. There were many more product introductions, too numerous to mention here. You can find out more at the AES website.

All in all, the 2014 Audio Engineering Society Convention in Los Angeles was a big success. It was great seeing old friends and meeting new ones and taking in the event and learning many new things about the ever changing audio industry and the people that inhabit it.

aes.org

Pro Tools 11 HD/Avid I/O 16x16 (2) upgrade for the B’z

B'zKoshi Inaba and Tak Matsumoto, better known as the “B’z”, are the biggest pop/rock act in Japan and all of Asia. Formed in 1988, the B’z have released 17 albums and had 50 singles over the past 26 years. Based in Japan, they also have a private recording facility in Los Angeles, outfitted with a Pro Tools HD3 rig. The B’s American drummer, Shane Gaalaas, contacted Audio Perception about upgrading the studio Avid Pro Tools HD rig to HDX, and Pro Tools 11/10 HD. They opted to crossgrade their HD3 and 2 x 192 Interfaces to an HDX2 and 2 x HD I/O 16x16 interfaces. The upgrade went smoothy, the B’z are thrilled with the new hardware and software, and Koshi, Tak and Shane have been busy tracking for their next album release.

bz-vermillion.com
shanegaalaas.com
allmusic.com - BZ

The Who - 50th Anniversary Tour

The Who 50thAfter completing the hugely successful Quadrophenia 2012/13 tour, Musical Director for The Who, Frank Simes, is knee deep in prepping for their 50th Anniversary Tour. This time the sheer number of potential tracks is quite ambitious, as they’ll have much deeper album cuts to pull out of the hat. For the 50th Anniversary Tour, Frank had to chart out dozens of hits and deep album cuts from the extensive catalog The Who has produced over the past many decades. He called on Jason Atkinson and Audio Perception to help prep album tracks in Digital Performer for the upcoming rehearsals. This way, Pete, and or Roger will not need to be present for much of the rehearsing, as they can reference the album tracks of Pete’s guitar and vocals, and Roger’s vocals. Frank also needed help building up a Kontakt based sample library of various horn parts from album multitrack sessions, as well as assorted sounds for other songs. So Jason and Frank have been working over the past several weeks building the Kontakt samples libraries and working on prep for the upcoming rehearsals. Tour dates for the U.K. and Ireland have been announced, with U.S. tour dates to follow. In a June 30th Rolling Stone magazine interview with Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, it was revealed that this will be somewhat of a ‘thank you’ and ‘farewell’ tour. Not so much from making new music, but from the grind of major touring. If you are a fan of The Who, don’t miss this one, it might be the last!

http://www.franksimes.com

http://thewho.com

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-who-reveal-first-dates-of-50th-anniversary-tour-20140630

2014 Pot Luck Audio Convention

potluckIn the land of the Saguaro cactus and golden-red sunsets, hundreds of audio recording enthusiasts descended upon The Hilton El Conquistador Resort in Tucson, AZ. for the 2014 Pot Luck Audio Conference. The #potluckcon2014 has been around for several years, and this year Audio Perception decided make the trek to Tucson to attend. The event includes a wide variety of informative panels and discussions, opportunities to speak directly with several pro audio manufacturers and to hear demos of some incredible audio gear, as well as the chance to meet and network with other musicians and audio engineers from all over the country.

The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences, one of the premier sponsors, had a noticeable presence at the event. CRAS brought their new sports broadcast AV trailer, which is used for educating students about live broadcast sound. It is an impressive combination of a classroom and a remote broadcast control room, with a top-notch array of equipment one would find in real-world situations. Audio and video was run from the truck to the resort over a single ethernet cable run. Cameras were setup in many of the meeting rooms, and parts of the event were broadcast to various televisions throughout the hall, and the main auditorium.

The crew of Audio Perception enjoyed several panel discussions on room acoustics. Panelists included such luminaries as Russ Berger (Russ Berger Design Group), Carl Tatz (Carl Tatz Design), Wes LaChot (Wes LaChot Design Group), and John Calder (Acoustical Surfaces, Inc.). The acoustics conversations were very informative, offering different perspectives from years of experience.

Other notable panelists at #potluckcon2014 include Leslie Ann Jones (Recording and Scoring at Skywalker Sound) and Andrew Scheps (Producer/Mixer/Engineer). Manufacturers in attendance include JBL, Manley Labs, Audio-Technica, Purple Audio, Mojave Audio, Apogee, API, Retro, Royer, Little Labs, Solid State Logic, PreSonus, Focal, Rupert Neve Designs, and more.

Overall, It was in exciting, fun filled and informative weekend at #potluckcon2014. We at Audio Perception look forward to attending it again in 2015.

http://www.potluckconference.com

Russ Berger Design Group
http://rbdg.com

Carl Tatz Design
http://www.carltatzdesign.com

Wes LaChot
http://weslachot.com

John Calder
http://www.acousticalsurfaces.com

Andrew Sheps
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/andrew-scheps-mn0000035504/credits

Leslie Ann Jones
http://www.skysound.com/bio/lajones.html

Custom Desks for The Conservatory

CRASThe Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences recently began building two new rooms based around the Solid State Logic AWS series analog recording consoles. The two rooms, one built in the Mesa, AZ facility, and the other built in the Gilbert, AZ satellite location we’re both in need of an elegant, functional and ergonomic furniture solution for the AWS consoles. Currently there are only a few furniture solutions for the AWS consoles, and none of them were ideal for the new CRAS studios.

Working with Mike Jones, Director of Education for CRAS, Audio Perception’s David Knauer designed a custom desk solution to house each AWS console without the included legs. The way the console mounts is unique and well thought out. It supports the weight of the mixer, and securely holds it in place.

crasDavid designed the wood desks to match the contour and curves of the SSL AWS mixer, giving it the appearance of a large format console. Included the design is rack space for outboard gear, and a bridge for near field monitors.

Both new rooms now have the custom desks and AWS consoles installed and working. The end result is a very professional presentation of ergonomic design and functionality. CRAS is thrilled with the end result.

Jeff Russo's Studio

Jeff RussoSongwriter, guitarist, producer and founding member of the band Tonic, Jeff Russo has had a very successful music

career for the past 20 years. in 2009, Jeff added composer to his list of talents. Starting with “The Unusuals” in 2009, he’s been consistently busy composing for film and tv projects since then. His latest composing work is on the critically acclaimed television series Fargo, on FX. Jeff’s Fargo score was nominated for an Emmy.

Jeff was looking to do some upgrades his studio, which included a reworking of his machine room, a new mixing console, new furniture for the console and his writing position, and new flooring.

The first portion of the upgrade was the machine room. The plan was to eliminate two flight case racks, and replace them with tall, open server racks. That was a two day process, and it really opened up the machine room, helping to keep the gear cooler overall.

jeff russo-1 20140722 1671462655The second step was flooring. Jeff had to completely clear out his control room. The new wood flooring was laid in a day. The wood coloring matches the wood that will be used on the new desk.

The third was adding a custom designed desk for Jeff’s new Solid State Logic AWS 948 console, and new wiring and patch bays . Audio Perception’s David Knauer designed the desk along the lines of desks he designed for the Conservatory or Recording Arts and Sciences.

The final step is the new desk for his composing station, which is back about 10 feet from the SSL AWS 948 and desk. The composing station desk.

More photos here: http://audioperception.com/photos/studio-installs/jeff-russo

Light Acoustic Album and Christmas Album are completed

alibiholiday2Ho ho ho, and Happy Holidays!! At least that’s what Audio Perception’s Jason Atkinson has been humming lately. Jason recently arranged and recorded a selection of public domain Christmas songs for the Alibi Music Library. Selctions including Jingle Bells, Joy to the World, Deck The Halls, Silent Night, Hark The Herald Angels Sing, and We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Treatments included Light Acoustic, Acoustic, and Jazz. You can listen to any of the tracks here: http://alibi.sourceaudio.com/#!explorer?b=946445

lacousticAlso recently completed by Jason Atkinson were twelve tracks for a new Light Acoustic album featured at the Alibi Music Library. These tracks were written to be sonically minimal, with light instrumentation, leaving plenty of room for commercial voice over and actor dialog. The tracks included a lot of real instruments played and recorded by Jason, including acoustic guitar, ukulele, mandolin, toy piano, and various percussion instruments. The twelve tracks were meticulously mixed and readied for delivery by Audio Perception’s David Knauer. You can listen to tracks from the Light Acoustic album here: http://alibi.sourceaudio.com/#!explorer?b=1356186

http://alibimusiclibrary.com

Mastering for the UK Office

alibi musicSince it’s launch in 2011 by Jonathan Parks, Alibi Music Library has been continually growing it business and music content. From the beginning, Audio Perception’s David Knauer has been mastering every track written for Alibi Music. Earlier in 2014, a new round of tracks started arriving for mastering, this time leading up to the launch of the new Alibi Music U.K. office. There were quite a few new tracks for mastering, which required a busy schedule between David Knauer handling all the mastering, and AP’s Craig Martin handling all content ingestion and prep, as well as final output of mastered tracks. The mastering process is crucial to achieving as much sonic consistency as possible between and among the various tracks and composers involved in the Alibi Music Library.

It was a long, detailed process, but all the new tracks are mastered and ready for the U.K. office launch.

http://alibimusiclibrary.com

New MacPro for Gareth Williams at Human LA

humanlogoWith offices in Los Angeles, New York and Paris, the creative team at Human World Wide is busy composing original music and sound design for advertising, television, film and interactive media. Human’s impressive list of clients include Apple, Sony, Nike, Coke Cola, Adidas, Google, Delta Airlines, Sony, Audi, Microsoft Xbox, and many more.

While the main Human office is in New York, the LA office relies on Audio Perception for technical support to keep their composers and studios up and running. We also provide comprehensive data backup, with off-site rotation. Composer and Co-Founder Gareth Williams was ready to upgrade to the newly redesigned 2013 Apple MacPro 12 Core computer. Gareth is one of the many, extremely busy composers at Human, and we needed to make the migration to the new MacPro as quick and trouble-free as possible. Audio Perception and Jim Weisbin, the head tech at the Human New York office, proceeded with careful and thorough planning prior to the big upgrade and migration. It was decided to keep the current MacPro running as-is, as a guest composer rig. For the system drive, we planned to use the Apple Migration Assistant to populate the new MacPro system drive with all relevant data from the MacPro5,1 system drive. For the two internal sound content drives, new drives were purchased and all data cloned. The project drive was just moved into the setup. To house all the data that was internal on the old MacPro, we utilized a 4 bay JBOD SATA Thunderbolt enclosure. For audio, we wanted to continue using Gareth’s existing Apogee AD16X and DA16X interfaces, so the Apogee Thunderbridge was chosen, which provides the same connections as the Symphony 64 card in the old MacPro5,1.

The data migration went smoothly, with all of Gareth’s data, including software and audio instrument plugins, Logic Pro X, and many other applications, populating the new MacPro. Aside from a few authorizations, etc., everything came across and worked. We did have to install some updated/new drivers here and there.

With all the necessary data copied to new drives, and the system drive data migration complete, the new MacPro is up and running with the Thunderbridge/Apogee hardware. When running Logic Pro X on Gareth’s new MacPro, the increase in system performance over the previous MacPro5,1 is quite noticeable.

All in all, the upgrade went smoothly over a weekend, and Gareth was back up and running for his Monday morning start.

http://humanworldwide.com

Two More Studios at CRAS

cras2a.pngThis month, The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Phoenix Arizona (CRAS) is putting the finishing touches on studios number 11 and 12. CRAS has accomplished an innovative design for its two separate campuses, the original in Tempe, Arizona, and the newer Gilbert campus, six miles away. The studios at the two campuses have the equipment mirrored between them. Primacoustic Razorblade Quadratic DiffuserThere are duplicate consoles consisting of two SSL 4000 Series, two API Legacy Plus consoles, two Neotek Elite consoles, two Digidesign C|24 Control Surface, and one Studer Vista 9 Digital Mixing Console in their broadcast studio, with a Studer Vista 5 Digital Mixing Console in their new mobile truck. Studios number 11 and 12 have been built at the Tempe campus to house new dual SSL AWS 948 consoles. CRAS alumni, Alex Otto, designed the rooms and is now deep into building them.

CRAS called Audio Perception to make eleven custom Quadratic Residue Diffusors (QRDs) for the studios. A QRD is an important part of a typical studio design. A sound wave which is traveling along through the air and comes upon a flat wall (or ceiling or floor) surface is reflected, for the most part at an equal and opposite angle of that which it arrived by. CRASA QRD is an acoustic treatment element which is designed to scatter sound over a wide degree of angles. The well depths are derived from a mathematical formula which is based off of any prime number. A sound wave that meets this type of diffusor is very effectively scattered across a large number of angles.

Seven units were created from unfinished wood, as they will be behind fabric, and four were covered in black enamel as they will be featured in the room with no cloth covering. Stay tuned for updates on the rooms as they get closer to completion and look out for the new desks we are designing and building for the SSL AWS 948 consoles.

http://www.audiorecordingschool.com

Gary Beers of INXS upgrades his Logic

Garry BeersMusician and songwriter, Garry Beers, has had a long and successful career. As bass player and contributing songwriter in the group INXS, Garry has toured the world over, and saturated radio and TV with catchy songs he’s penned like ‘Don’t Change’, ‘Listen Like Thieves’, ‘Just Keep Walking” and ‘The Swing’. Over the years, Garry has been busy writing songs and music for film and television. Garry’s music career goes back to 1975, when he joined his first band, Legolas Elvin Warrior. In that band he played the acoustic guitar. After studying guitar for nine months, he saw little Improvement. This then led him to try out the bass guitar, and the rest is history. In 1979, INXS was born.

Garry was in need of some upgrades to his writing system, which was a fairly old MacPro1,1. We tracked down a used 8 Core MacPro5,1 for Garry. The migration was straight forward, we cloned the MacPro1,1 system drive to the drive in the MacPro5,1, upgraded the OS and reauthorized plugins as needed. With the newer generation MacPro up and running, Garry’s writing system is now faster and more efficient, and Garry is back to making some incredible music.

http://inxs.com/band/garry-gary-beers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INXS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Gary_Beers 

Thunder makes a big noise at Jump!

thunderlogo1.pngThunder doesn’t only happen when it’s raining! Just ask Art Wright, owner of Thunder Music & Sound Design, an audio post production studio now located in the Blackwelder complex in the Culver City Arts District. Art was planning to move Thunder into the Jump LA Editorial building and needed a complete room buildout with a spacious control room and a large, comfortable isolation booth. 

The project had already begun when Audio Perception was brought in to take it over.  The exterior walls were completed and some of the interior wall and detail work had been started.  AP’s David Knauer met with Art to consult and assume the role of Project Manager. There was a lot to do still. Jerry Steckling of JSX audio was brought in to consult on the interior acoustical design and buildout. We brought in general contractors for the interior buildout, electrical wiring, acoustical treatments installation, as well the building of custom sound control devices like diffusers, bass traps, and a ceiling cloud.thundersketchupAlong the way, there were many infrastructure challenges encountered.  We had to make structural changes to the control room window, as well as the control room door and doorway. In addition to all the infrastructure work, Art also wanted custom furniture for the new room. He wanted it to be very functional and practical, with a professional and elegant appearance. David and Art came up with a furniture design in a 3D design program, and our highly skilled craftsmen at AZ Studio Workstations went to work on building the main desk and the producer’s desk. This process would take several weeks to complete.

With the buildout underway, Audio Perception now had to plan for wiring and gear integration. Most of the gear from Art’s previous studio would be moved to the new location. Gear coming to the new room included a Pro Tools HD3 System, various outboard mic preamps, phone patch and ISDN for voice over, TT patch bays, and a Digidesign Pro Control, consisting of a Fader Pack, Edit Pack, and the Main Unit. The patch bays were from the previous studio incarnation and were soldered on the rear. Repurposing the patch bays took a fair amount of time but was necessary to accommodate much of the equipment placement, which had changed. It took a fair amount of planning to repurpose the TT bays and existing cabling, but the desired result was accomplished.

It was a fairly long process to get from the point of taking over the project, to the studio being complete and up and running, but it turned out exactly as planned. It sounds great, looks great, and Art is busy making his clients happy and repeat customers.

http://www.thunder-sound.com/

Brian Malouf Gets a HDX Upgrade and New Machine Room

malouf featureWith a growing client list spanning from the mid-1980s to today, Brian Malouf has had a long and successful career in the music business. Brian’s audio engineering clientele include The Jacksons, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Starship, Al Jarreau, Pete Townsend, Julian Lennon, Seal, Celine Dion, Pearl Jam, Lisa Loeb, Pink, Pharrell Williams, Queen, Everclear and many more. From 1994 to 2005, Brian was Vice-President, A&R, for RCA Records in New York. In addition, Brian is an accomplished musician, having played drums in various bands, and served as the first-chair symphonic percussionist at Cal State Northridge while attending college there.

This year, Brain was ready to expand his studio. The upgrade included some construction to the building to add a client area/kitchen, a bathroom, and a much needed machine room to eliminate the quiet rack in the control room which took up a lot of space. In addition, Brian was ready to upgrade his old Pro Tools HD hardware to the new AVID HDX hardware. Audio Perception was brought in to perform the Pro Tools upgrade and move the gear from the control room into the new machine room. First, we preformed the Avid HDX/Pro Tools 11HD upgrade, which included a more recent MacPro, and getting all of Brian’s plugins, software, the operating system, etc. up-to-date. Once we had the HDX system up and running, we went to work on the new machine room. A server-type rack was brought in to vertically install all the gear in. We needed a fair amount of height due to the small size of the machine room. In addition to moving all the Avid hardware, the Apple MacPro computer, and a few other miscellaneous audio items, we also had to run all relevant audio cabling under the floor into the machine room. Last, we had to make some minor changes to the TT patch bays, changing or rearranging some of the patch points, and printing new labels.

With the new HDX rig up and running and the new machine room completed and operational, Brian is thrilled with the new setup and with the square footage he’s regained in his control room now that the quiet rack has been eliminated.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/brian-malouf-mn0000519178/credits

Steve Angello Sets Up A New Writing Room in Los Angeles

steveapic.pngHailing from Stockholm, Sweden, Steve Angello is one of the hottest DJs touring throughout the world. Steve’s style, a mixture of house music infused with an epic, almost orchestral intensity, has been bringing stadium crowds to their feet, on sold out show after sold out show. In addition to his DJ’ing success, Steve is also owner and founder of Size Records. Established in 2003, Size Records has an impressive roster of artists and releases in the EDM/DJ genre.

When Steve decided to setup shop in the States, he needed a writing and production room in Los Angeles. Audio Perception’s Jason Atkinson was brought in to handle all the gear wiring and integration. With Apple’s Logic Pro as the primary DAW, the studio centers around The Box from API, which handles summing for the room. A Universal Audio Apollo 16 handles the Audio I/O for the Apple MacBookPro laptop that Steve primarily uses. Additional outboard gear includes a Chandler Curve Bender EQ, an Evol Audio Fucifier, a Solid State Logic XLogic G Series compressor, an API 5500 stereo EQ and an API 2500 stereo compressor, a Neve 8803 stereo EQ, and finally a Universal Audio 710 Twin-Finity microphone preamp as the main input device. All the gear was laid out and wired into two 96 point TT patch bays.

With the new writing room up and running in Los Angeles, Steve is busy creating more incredible music for his millions of fans. Be sure to catch Steve in concert if you get the chance.

http://steveangello.com
https://soundcloud.com/steveangello
https://soundcloud.com/sizerecords
https://twitter.com/steveangello
https://www.youtube.com/steveangello
https://instagram.com/steveangello

NAMM 2014 Update

namm2014From January 23rd through the 26th, almost 100,000 attendees will descend upon the Anaheim Convention Center in sunny Southern California to attend the annual NAMM Show. With over 1,000,000 square feet of space, you’ll find an immense assortment of musical instruments and audio equipment from thousands of manufacturers, as well as countless rooms for lectures, demonstrations, concerts and meetings. You’ll often hear attendees from the east coast talk about the cold weather they left behind while basking in the warmth of SoCal winters.

The NAMM show is the premiere event for manufacturers and dealers in the United States. It’s where dealers and resellers from all over the country get to see all the new gear for the year, and where they’ll place orders to stock up on inventory. At the NAMM Show, you’ll also find numerous panels and presentations for retail salesmen to hone their sales skills, and learn more about the instruments and equipment they sell.

While strolling around the huge convention center, it’s not uncommon to see a variety of famous music artists and musicians, who my just be in attendance to enjoy the show, or they may be there to do demonstrations or concerts.

We attend the show to see what companies like MOTU, AVID, Steinberg, Apple, and many other companies and developers relevant to our clientele, have in the way of new gear and software, etc. We also like to have some in-person time with the many contacts we have at various audio and music equipment related companies.

The 2014 NAMM Show was quite eventful. We wandered the Convention Center floor for three days, exploring the event, meeting with old friends and making some new ones, checking out the latest studio gear, and eating too much rich and spicy food. By Sunday, our feet were begging for mercy. It was another great NAMM Show event!

Until next year!

http://www.namm.org

http://www.anaheimconventioncenter.com

Matt Sorum gets a new Pro Tools setup

GNR  What do Guns N’ Roses, Y Can’t Tori Read, The Cult and Velvet Revolver have in common? The very talented Matt Sorum! An excellent drummer and percussionist, Matt has had a long career in the music industry. Matt’s newest project is Fierce Joy, with a new album called Stratosphere. Check out “Lady of the Stone”  and “The Wild Ones” from the new record. The band, Kings of Chaos, which is one of his other side music projects, is a touring band that performs the songs of Aerosmith, Guns ’N Roses, ZZ Top, Cheap Trick, Extreme, and more. Members include Matt, Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Robin Zander (Cheap Trick), Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme), Duff McKagan and Gilby Clarke (Guns N’ Roses).

mattsMatt also has a private recording studio called Drac Studios. A wide variety of artists and musicians have recorded there, including Velvet Revolver, Manhattan Transfer, Macy Gray, Dave Navarro, Billy Idol and many more. The center piece of the studio is a vintage Trident 80C analog mixing console. In addition to the vintage console, the studio boasts a nice selection of outboard gear including Telefunken mics, Gretsch drums, Zildjian cymbals, and many guitar amps from Marshall, Fender, Ampeg, Vox, Orange, Gibson, Silvertone and Magnatone.  Matt also runs Pro Tools HD and had been using a Mac G5 for many years. While a lot of great music was recorded on the old computer, the studio was in real need of more CPU speed, so he called Audio Perception looking for assistance. AP setup Matt with a MacPro, Digidesign HD3 and Pro Tools 10 HD. We got the new computer up and running and integrated into the studio, and now Matt and his engineer, Alex Torodov, are thrilled with the speed and power of the new setup.

In addition to making records and touring, Matt is also very active with various charitable organizations and animal welfare groups. He is the founder of Adopt the Arts, an organization that supports music and the arts in school programs. He’s also an Ambassador for IFAW, an animal rescue group. Needless to say, he’s very passionate about helping others, whether they walk on two legs, or four.  Check out the organizations that mean so much to Matt below.

http://mattsorum.com/studio/

www.mattsorum.tv
www.kingsofchaosband.com - Founder
www.adoptthearts.org - Founder
www.dolphinproject.net - Ambassador
www.animalsasia.org - US Ambassador
www.ifaw.org - Ambassador

Vocal Coach Steven Memel

StevenMemelSeveral months back, while we were manning our exhibitor table at the 2013 Taxi Road Rally event, we had the pleasure of meeting Steven Memel. Steven was a guest speaker at the event. He is based in Los Angeles, and is a well known voice and performance coach with a long list of successful clientele. Steven has coached singers like Adam Levine and Sara Bareilles, as well as speech coaching for Justin Long, Drew Barrymore, and Isabella Rossellini, to name a few. Since our table was parked right outside an exit from the Great Ballroom, we struck up a conversation with Steven. He mentioned that he might  be in need of some assistance with his vocal teaching studio. He had some remodeling done to his home and studio, and just needed some help getting things set up again.

A few months after the Taxi event, we met Steven at his studio. He just has a basic recording setup for capturing lessons. We proceeded to get the gear and computer setup, tested and working.

Steven’s vocal studio is up and running again, and he’s thrilled to get back to work.

For more information, please visit: http://stevenmemel.com

An Update for Soulshock

soulshock11With hits for artists like Monica (Before You Walk out of My Life), Toni Braxton (I Love Me Some Him), 2Pac (Do For Love), Craig David with Sting (Rise & Fall), Fantasia (Truth Is), and many more, Carsten Schack, aka Soulshock of Soulpower Productions, is a very busy and in-demand songwriter and record producer. Hailing from Denmark, Soulshock moved to the United States in 1993 to further his music career.

Song productions originate in Studio A, where Soulshock composes the tracks. From there, it moves to the Studio C for tracking vocals and instruments. This work flow allows Soul to continue working on other songs, while tracking happens in Studio C.

For many years now, Studio C was based around a Pro Tools HD system on a G5 running Pro Tools HD8. They wanted to get improved CPU performance in the room, so they purchased a used MacPro, and we sold them a used HD Core card, and did the installation. We also upgraded the Studio C MacPro to Pro Tools HD10, for a more seamless workflow between the two rooms.

With the used MacPro, Pro Tools HD10 and the HD Core installed and running, Steven Anzo, Soulshock’s assistant engineer, has a much snappier system for the tracking room, and the added benefit of both systems running the same version of Pro Tools HD.

http://www.soulpower.net/home

AP's First Taxi Event

taxi

This November, as several thousand aspiring songwriters descend upon the Westin Hotel in Los Angeles, near LAX, it can only mean that it is once again time for the Taxi Road Rally. Brought to you by Taxi and Michael Laskow, the Road Rally events offer Taxi members a wide variety of guest speakers and informative panels, all intended to educate, inspire, motivate and empower attendees to take the next step in their music career.

The featured guest speaker of this year’s event was Geoff Emerick, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award, and was interviewed about his work with The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Badfinger, Elvis Costello, America, Split Enz, Cheap Trick and countless other famous music groups and artists.

Several months ahead of the event, Michael contacted us about being an exhibitor at the event. That’s something we hadn’t done yet, but the idea was intriguing. So we decided to attend the event as an exhibitor.

Our exhibitor table had a colorful display of brochures, photos of AP design work, business cards, and a MacMini loaded with a local copy of our website. Behind us was a large banner with the AP logo. Our table was located directly across the hallway from one of the Grand Ballroom exits. This was an excellent location for high volume foot-traffic. Every time the Grand Ballroom let out at the end of a panel, the area was flooded with attendees. This gave us plenty of opportunities to talk with many interested attendees in need of the technical and design services we provide.

Overall, there was a lot of energy and excitement at the 2013 Road Rally event. We spent the three days meeting and talking with a lot of attendees, as well as other exhibitors. It was a great experience and a wonderful opportunity to spread the word about Audio Perception.

For more information, visit http://www.taxi.com.

Josh Kramon, Scoring the Veronica Mars Feature Film

joshkIf you’re a fan of the television series Veronica Mars, you’ll soon have your VM fix satiated with the upcoming feature film. The whole cast is back, as well as music composer, Josh Kramon. He had begun work on the feature film score in a temporary studio location, while his home and studio were being completely remodeled. Right in the middle of the VM score at his temporary studio location, it was time to move Josh back into his newly remodeled home, and into his brand new studio above the garage.

For the studio move, work on the score had to cease for a few weeks. Prior to the move, Audio Perception consulted with Josh on what new cabling would be necessary, what existing cable could be used, and on mic/headphone panels and sound control treatments. The studio includes a large control room, a roomy studio booth, and a machine room.

Once consulting and planning had begun, the next step was to plan and initiate equipment transport to the new studio. With a crew of three and a U-Haul cargo van, we successfully moved all the studio gear, instruments, computers, etc., back to the newly remodeled studio.

Veronica-Mars-Movie Score AmazonDOD-Art thumbNext we went to work on wiring, which included custom mic/headphone wall panels, and a custom cable conduit that AP’s Craig Martin built into the ceiling of the garage, so that cables could be cleanly run between the machine room, control room, and booth. Holes had to be drilled through the floor down into the garage where the conduit resides. There are always design challenges that must be overcome in these situations. With this solution implemented and working, we got busy running all the necessary cabling.

With the wiring mostly complete, it was time to move all the gear into place for both the control room and the machine room. Once we had all the gear in place, we had to assess the power scheme, including what would be on battery backup.

With all the gear in place, up and running, it was time to assess the control room acoustics by taking the proper measurements. These measurements are necessary to determine the appropriate acoustic materials needed to compensate for any acoustic problems the testing reveals. Armed with the results of the control sound measurements, AP’s David Knauer went to work on designing the appropriate acoustic treatments that stay within the available budget, yet provide the most effective results.

With the sound treatment design completed, and all necessary acoustic treatment products ordered and now delivered, Craig went to work hanging all the material as per the design by David. Sound treatments were completed within a few days.

And finally, with all aspects of the installation now complete, and the studio fully functional in the newly designed space, Josh was able to get back to work finishing the score for the highly anticipated Veronica Mars feature film.

You can learn more about Josh here:

http://wmeclients.com/mvm/composer/josh-kramon

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0469725/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Josh-Kramon/188919359299

http://www.marsinvestigations.net/interviews/joshkramon1.php

http://joshkramonmusic.com

VKLA Update

Setup and rewire the demo summing station.

vklaSince opening up June of 2012, the Los Angeles Vintage King (VKLA) location has been providing a unique, boutique shopping experience to a wide array of music professionals. By appointment only, VKLA offers up an incredible assortment of high-end audio gear that you can come in and try out with the assistance of one of their very knowledgeable salesmen. To provide that service, the folks at VKLA spent a considerable amount of time setting up themed, flexible demo stations. Audio Perception was brought in to assist with various demo stations, including the Summing Demo Station. The Summing Demo consisted of an iMac, running Avid’s Pro Tools software, along with an Antelope Orion 32 audio interface, which was used to send groupings of 8 analog outputs to various analog summing devices. The brainchild of VKLA West Coast Sales Manager, Jeffrey Ehrenberg, the Summing Demo solution would be an efficient and elegant way to compare summing between various solutions. While the experienced sales staff at VKLA is capable of wiring up the Summing Demo Station, their time is better spent selling, so AP was hired to take care of it. The Summing Demo setup consists of three patch bays, and utilizes half-normals and 32 TT patch cables to continually send four banks of 8 audio channels to 8 summing devices. The half-normals and the 32 TT patch cables provided the split necessary to get 32 outputs into 64 inputs. Then the stereo summed outputs from all of the summing devices were normalled, via the patch bay, into a Coleman MS8A switcher (8 switchable stereo source inputs, 1 stereo out with volume). This setup allows you to play the same eight channels of test audio out of the four analog banks on the Orion 32, which automatically get sent to eight summing devices, and finally you can quickly and easily compare the resulting summing quality with the push of a button on the Colman switcher. There are four additional summing boxes (12 total), but up to eight can be fed 8 channels simultaneously. The summing devices include: SSL X-Desk, Neve 8816, Shadow Hills Equinox, Dangerous D-Box,  Tube-Tech SSA-2B, Great River MixMaster 20, Burl B32, Analogue ToneBuss, Inward Connections Mix 690, Rupert Neve 059 Satellite, Phoenix Audio Nicerizer, and the Folcrom RMS216.

With the Summing Demo Station setup and operational, customers now have a hassle free way to easily audition every summing device at that station. It’s a great idea, and a great way to sell these products.

Xmas Songs for Alibi

alibi logoHo, ho, ho, and Christmas cheer!! With the holiday season quickly approaching, Jason Atkinson of Audio Perception just wrapped up composing an assortment of public domain Christmas/holiday songs for Alibi Music Library. While there are already some public domain Christmas songs in the Alibi library, they were all “big” sounding. The idea was to arrange and record light acoustic versions of several popular public domain Christmas songs. These light versions leave a lot more sonic room for voice over and dialog.

Visit any of the links below to hear some of the tracks.

We Wish You A Merry Christmas - Acoustic
http://alibi.sourceaudio.com/#!details?id=5435174

Silent Night - Jazz
http://alibi.sourceaudio.com/#!details?id=5435229
alibiholiday2
Jingle Bells - Jazz
http://alibi.sourceaudio.com/#!details?id=5435313

Jingle Bells - Acoustic
http://alibi.sourceaudio.com/#!details?id=5435358

Deck The Halls - Jazz
http://alibi.sourceaudio.com/#!details?id=5435411

508 Studios

508 StudiosLocated just south-east of Downtown Los Angeles, near the blossoming arts district adjacent to the Los Angeles River, is 508 Studios. Owner/engineer/producer Edgar Olivares was in the process of opening a new studio for songwriters and artists when he called on the services of Audio Perception for sound treatments, wiring, and integration. Consisting of two control rooms and a shared live room, the studio offers top-notch production skills, audio gear, and vibe. Edgar wanted a cool, creative space for music creation, and this place has all that and more. For audio signal path, a wide array of high-end gear was purchased for the studio. The A Room is centered around the SSL Nucleus control surface with a built-in monitor controller section. The B Room features the SSL Matrix control surface and 508 Studios Racksumming mixer, which also includes a built-in monitor controller section. Both rooms are equipped with Apple MacPro computers running a variety of software DAWs, including Apple Logic Pro, Avid Pro Tools, and Ableton Live. Universal Audio Apollo interfaces handle audio I/O in both rooms. Outboard gear includes Vintech, API, Neve, JDK, Teletronix, Empirical Labs and more. David Knauer designed and planned the patch bay layout and wiring, including mic/headphone panels for both control rooms to access the live room. In addition to the wiring, Primeacoustic sound control products were chosen for sound treatment in both control rooms and the live room. Custom drapes were also planned for the B control room, to prevent sound reflections off the back windows when needed. With the plans finalized, the Audio Perception team completed the installation and now 508 Studios is up and running. Edgar is thrilled and ready to get busy making great music.

For more into, visit https://www.facebook.com/508studios

New Facility With Three Rooms for Will.i.am

will.i.am"Let's get it started in here!", exclaims will.i.am, in the 2005 Grammy winning song. Just one of many hits from the very talented wrapper, singer, songwriter, musician, producer and engineer William James Adams, aka will.i.am. Having locked out a room at the Record Plant for awhile now, will.i.am wanted his own creative space. When the old Technicolor building in Hollywood came up for lease, will.i.am thought it would be the perfect building and location. What was envisioned there was a one-stop shop for songwriting, music production, mixing, video production, and a green screen sound stage. It's a multimedia laboratory for collaborative creative endeavors. When construction is completed on the facility, there will be a total of three recording studios. A custom designed production studio for will.i.am, a traditional tracking and mixing studio, and a smaller writing studio for guest writer-producers. A large live room will be shared by will.i.am's studio and the guest writing studio. The studios and live rooms were designed by Vincent Amaury Van Haaff. Audio Perception will be planning and wiring all the studios, but it will take some time for construction to be completed. In the meantime will.i.am wanted a temporary setup to work with in the guest writing studio. For the temp studio, Audio Perception setup a new Apple MacPro, Avid Pro Tools HDX with an Avid I/O, a quiet rack for the computer and Avid interface, a few mic preamps, and a pre-release Slate Digital Raven control surface/display. With the temp room up and running for will.i.am, Audio Perception will soon be planning wiring for all three rooms. Later this year, will.i.am's creative vision will become reality. Runnin', running', keep runnin', runnin!!

Hilton and Alibi song updates

250px-Hilton Hotels logo.svgA new Hilton promotional radio campaign licensed the Alibi Music Library track "Spool Table", written by Audio Perception. Several radio spots were cut, and broadcast in several major markets, including Los Angeles. Jason Atkinson, one of the composers at Audio Perception, describes hearing the Hilton radio spot while driving around Los Angeles:

"While driving around L.A., between appointments, I had 95.5 KLOS on the radio and I kept hearing a particular radio spot. I was thinking to myself that the music sounded like something you'd hear from the Alibi Music Library. After hearing the radio spot a few more times, a Hilton hotels radio spot, the music sounded more and more familiar, almost like I knew the track. After I got home later that day, I visited the Alibi Music Library website and searched for music we had done. I found a track called "Spool Table", which sure sounded like the track I recalled hearing in the Hilton commercial. So I emailed Jonathan Parks at Alibi, asked him about it and sure enough, that was our track. It's always kind of exciting hearing our work blaring from a radio or television."

Audio Perception continues its productive work with Alibi Music, providing mastering for the entire library, and composing more tracks.

http://alibi.sourceaudio.com

http://alibimusiclibrary.com

Audio Perception, Exhibitor at the 2013 ASCAP Expo

ASCAPExpo2013It was an exciting three days in Hollywood, California when over 2000 hopeful music artists from all over the world, converged at the ASCAP "I Crate Music" Expo. On April 18th though the 20th, the enthusiastic attendees spent their days immersed in informative industry panels, live performances, and song critique sessions, as well as a wide variety of exhibitions. Ranging in topics from creative to business, this event was all about making it as an independent artist, educating attendees on how to take control of their London 8 Kitcareers. For the event, Audio Perception was there as a first time exhibitor. We had a prime spot in the main hallway entry area leading to many of the industry panels. Our booth was setup with an assortment of information about, and photos of our work, as well as a computer displaying our website. We also had a special giveaway for attendees who signed up for it. The prize was a London 12 sound control kit from Primacoustic. For all three days we manned the Audio Perception booth, talking with hundreds of interested attendees, hailing from an assortment of nooks and crannies around the globe. Overall the event was a big success. We had a lot of great response and interest from attendees, and met quite a few prospective clients in need of our services.

Wiring The New Skrillex Downtown LA Studio

skrillexSonny John Moore, the multi-talented musician, composer, producer and songwriter also known as Skrillex, recently had a new studio built in his Downtown LA loft. Prior to the huge success Skrillex has enjoyed, Sonny was lead singer in the band "From First to Last", which formed in 2004. They had two very successful releases with Epitaph Records, and toured extensively. In 2007, Sonny officially left the band after suffering with serious vocal chord problems, which required surgery, Custom-Floor-Boxand thus his solo career began. For the new studio, Skrillex purchased an SSL Matrix mixing console/DAW controller, an Antelope Orion 32 audio interface and various outboard gear, patch bays and wiring. A custom desk was built for the studio, as well as custom acoustic treatments. Audio Perception was brought in for wiring and gear integration. Armed with three DB-25, 96 point TT patch bays and a several boxes filled with a variety of off-the-shelf DB-25 snakes, we proceeded to get the entire room wired up according to the patch bay plans provided by Vintage King. Getting the room wired up, tested and fully functional took several days to complete. With the new room up and running, Skrillex now has his perfect personal creative space. We'll be hearing much more cool music from Sonny, a.k.a., Skrillex.

ROBERT HAAS

roberthaas1It's 2000 miles from Nashville to L.A. That sounds like a title for a country song, but that's how far songwriting team Robert Haas and Kristin Massey recently moved. Robert wanted to close down his Nashville studio and setup shop here in Los Angeles, so they relocated from Nashville after many years away. The duo's music career got off to a big start in the late eighties with their band Red Siren, and their 1989 hit song "All Is Forgiven". Today they continue to write and produce music for themselves and other artists. Just as Robert was leaving Nashville, he decided to purchase a new SSL AWS-924 analog mixing console. Audio Perception was asked to design, setup, and integrate the new room in L.A. with two 96 point patch bays and new custom wiring for all his outboard gear and the console. We also installed Primeacoustic panels in the room for proper sound control, along with a pair of Sound Anchor roberthaas2speaker stands that make a noticeable difference in the punch and focus of the low end response. Just off the bedroom there is a bathroom that doubles as a vocal booth. AP pulled the necessary wiring, and made a custom snake box for mic, line and headphones, as well as installing Primacoustic Scatter Blocks to finnish off the "Vocal Booth". The area we transformed into Robert's writing and mixing room was fairly small, but with careful planning and Primacoustic room treatments, it's turned into a great sounding and very functional creative space. Robert is thrilled with the new setup and he and Kristin have been busy working on new material.

Phase Three Install with Post Modern Creative

postmodern-logoOur work with Post Modern Creative continues. Over the past few years, Audio Perception has planned and implemented major upgrades for PMG's Pro Tools HD based audio production room in two phases. As their volume of business has steadily increased, the time has come for phase three. For Post Modern Creative to keep up with the audio production work load, they needed to build a complete new second room from scratch to mirror their main room that we built last year. To accomplish this, we had to plan and acquire the necessary hardware and software to match the two rooms. PMG went with two new matching Mac Pro computers, one for the new Studio B, the other to replace the current Mac Pro in Studio A. Their current Pro Tools system is an HD Accel based rig, so we had to track down used HD cards and matching 192 interfaces. Plugins also had to be matched between systems, and a Telos ISDN unit was installed. We also had Audio Perception's custom wiring department create various DB25 analog and digital audio snakes to connect the I/O to the machine room. They already had Mackie monitors in Studio A, so to keep consistent between the rooms, we added a complete set of five Mackie monitors and a JBL sub to Studio B. We also setup both rooms with Studio Technologies Studio Comm Model 74/75 5.1 surround monitor controllers. Once Studio B was up and running, and the upgrades to Studio A were complete, we finally had both rooms properly tuned by Jerry Stecking of JSX Audio. Post Modern Creative is now up and running with two mirrored studios, ready to tackle their growing audio production workload.

NAMM WRAP UP

namm2013Where else can you and 95,000 other music enthusiasts and professionals all meet in a cozy 518,000 square feet? Why, none other than the 2013 NAMM Show! The 2013 event was bristling with activity. Featuring musical instruments from all over the world to be seen and played, incredible celebrity performances filling the daily calendar, and everything from suit and tie wearing piano manufacturers to spiky, purple haired punk rock guitar salesmen, the show is always an experience. Audio Perception was there all four days, keeping up to date with new equipment and software, visiting with old friends and contacts, and making new ones. Radial Engineering, one of the brands we carry, had some great new products at the show. Radial showed its new Voco-Locovoco-loco, a microphone preamp in a floor box that lets you add guitar effects pedals to a live vocal performance. The effects loop can be bypassed via a foot switch. The Cherry Picker preamp selector is another new product from Radial. It is a one input to four output switch, offering audio engineers the ability to quickly patch a single microphone through to one of four selectable mic preamp destinations. Also new from Radial is the Cherry Picker's sibling, the Gold Digger.cherrypicker A four input by one output box that allows you to quickly select which of the four outputs that the single input will feed. Radial always provides a great array of Swiss-army-knife audio products. golddiggerAnother manufacturer we carry, Primacoustic, announced that their long awaited paintable sound panels are ready to begin shipping. This technology allows for creative and artful color coordination of panels to the look and color of the install location. All in all, 2013 was another incredible NAMM show.

Mix Magazine: Mastering for Music Libraries

mixlogo1For over six years, AP has been mastering music for TV and film music libraries. Tom Kenny, the Editor of Mix Magazine, asked APs David Knauer to write an article for this month's "Mastering" issue.  For the article, we decided to use our most current and challenging project, mastering the entire Alibi Music Library to showcase how we work. The four page article discusses the entire process from importing the files all the way through to delivering the final masters back to the client.  It also covers our setup and equipment used, as well as the plugins we used, and the processes we created to handle thousands of songs.  The songs come in from many different composers all created and mixed under different circumstances.  This creates a very challenging environment to work in and the article explains how we accomplished the task and achieved the end goal which was to provide a consistent tone and audio level throughout the entire library.  The library covers a vast array of music and includes many genres and styles of songs.  Check out the December issue of Mix for the entire story, and listen to our work at our mastering page "here" or at the Alibi Music Library web site.

House of Rock update

001

Back in August, we told you about a project we were working on for the House of Rock.  Well the opening went great and by now they have recorded over 50 bands and used every room in the house to record in.  One of the goals of the project was that it had no restraints on where people could record at.  With this in mind, we designed a system that allows them to record all over the house.  Three rooms, which were the farthest ones from the studio, each received a custom wall panel designed with mic inputs, headphone system connections as well as video and Cat6e connections.  This system allows the HOR engineer to send and receive anything he wants in these rooms.  Check out our "Photo" section to see the studio and click "here" to see the House of Rock gallery.  Check back soon for more updates and photo's coming up. View the original article "08/15/2012"


Let Audio Perception Clear Out Your Old Equipment

macpro1192smThis year we have done a lot of updates for our clients.  Pro Tools HD to HDX trade upgrades have been popular, as well as many people growing into a newer Mac Pro or DAW software.  Each time we do an upgrade for a client, we end up with a surplus of gear that is older but still in great condition.  With all this great used stuff available, we decided to start a new consignment program for our clients.  AP will now take in your used equipment and list it in our online store, as well as our eBay store and other outlets. That way you can sell your stuff fast and never have to see the buyer or deal with Craigslist ads.  It's never been easier to part with your old gear and get some quick cash.  Coming next month, we will launch a system in our store that will let you login and see our entire used inventory in a searchable database so you can find what you are looking for.  You can also email or call us anytime to see what we have in stock.  

Info@audioperception.com 

818-693-0134

AES 2012 in San Francisco

aeslogoBarefoot MM12smslate ravensmThis year's AES 2012 was not just a good excuse to hang out for four days in one of our favorite cities, but was also a really great show.  We got to check out a lot of great new gear and see old friends.  If you were signed up to our Twitter feed, we were sending out live updates and photos from the floor.  This year there were many new products like the Slate Pro Audio Raven MTX Multitouch Audio Production Console, Radial Engineering's PS4 Cherry Picker and MS4 Gold Digger for auditioning mics and pre-amps, and Barefoot's new Mini Main 12, which are the speakers that were featured in the House of Rock install.  We also saw some new great products like the Grace Designs M905 monitor controller, BAE's 500 series 1073 Mic Pre Equalizer and the 10DC Dynamic Compressor, and many more.  It was a really great high energy show and we are looking forward to this year's NAMM in January.

Composing Music For Alibi Music Library


chexmixalbertsonsMost of you know that for the last year and a half we have been involved with a massive mastering project covering thousands of songs for the Alibi Music Library.  What you may not know is that we have also composed over 65 songs that are currently available for licensing.  AP's Jason Atkinson has showcased some of his special playing skills using instruments like banjo, accordion, pedal steel, ukulele, mandolin as well as his usual arsenal of acoustic and electric guitars, keys, bass, drums and percussion, all played by Jason.  Songs cover a wide range of genres including Acoustic, Bounce Rock, Country, Fun Rock, Rock Grooves, Uplifting Rock and Warm as well as a group of acoustic based Holiday songs.  Working with our other composers, we did a few Island and some Aggressive tracks also.  Songs have been heard this fall in a Chex Mix commercial and an Albertsons grocery store ad. You can hear more of our work in our "Media" section or at the Alibi Music site.

http://alibimusiclibrary.com

VKLA's Control Room Wiring

vklaWe get a lot of calls from VKLA, Vintage King's Los Angeles office and showroom, to do installs and tech support for their clients.  Just this summer we installed a complete control room for Canadian Producer/Songwriter/Engineer team Van Howes, and we got called in to do tech support for Jeffrey Osborne, as well as many other of VKLA's high-end clients.  But this month we got a call of a different sort.  We were asked to come in and wire the control room for their own new showroom.  We installed all of the cabling for the API and the SSL consoles, as well as four racks full of equipment.  The most unique feature of the room is a custom audio and speaker routing system that allows the VKLA clients to monitor audio from multiple sources through 2 different consoles.  From there you can listen through all of the best brands of audio AD and DA converters and listen through a variety of different sets of speakers.

Music Connection Friday Freebie for 9/14

MClondon12a-ghost350Win a FREE studio sound-control bundle worth $750.00.  Audio Perception is working with Music Connection magazine again this month to offer up a great deal to one lucky winner.  We are giving away a London 12™ Room Kit by Primacoustic.  Click "here" to register for the free drawing, but hurry, it ends Thursday Sept. 13th.  The winner will be announced on Friday Sept. 14th on the Music Connection website "here."

HOR and Rolling Stone's 50th Anniversary

rolling-stone-logo-300x73hor1August is an incredible month at Audio Perception.  After a very successful project in 2010, "The Esquire House Bachelor Pad of the Year", AP was again asked to join forces with famed designer Elaine Culotti, Blue Microphone and SSL on another huge project, the House of Rock. For this one, the HOR also recruited VKLA, JSX Audio and the studio's creative leader, Grammy award winning producer/engineer Jack Joseph Puig.  The House of Rock is a beautiful old house that is being turned into the ultimate rock and roll dream home.  The HOR will be used for charity events to raise money for great causes like Music Unites, a non-profit organization that funds after-school music education programs.  HOR will also be used by Rolling Stone magazine to promote their 50th anniversary coming up, as well as events for sponsors Clear Channel, I Heart Radio, Verzion and more.  AP was enlisted to do all of the design, install, wiring, and integration of all the equipment provided by SSL, Vintage King LA, Neutrik, Belden and more.  The studio takes up the entire 1800 sq ft attic space, and is going to feature products that aren't even released to the public yet.  I can't say or show you much more yet, but we'll have lots more to tell you and show you in the next month to come after the official September opening, so check back soon. View the updated article "11/23/2012

Notre Dame High School Goes Digital

NDHSdigiswitchWe have be working closely with NDHS for over ten years now, providing tech services, products, and consulting for their TV Production course.  Headed up by Notre Dame's Elisia Harkins, the school has a three year course, TV Production I, II, and III, available for students to take.  This year we provided and installed five 24" iMacs running Apple's Final Cut Pro and a whole new updated video control room.  We started with a custom made floor box in the stage area where they shoot.  It has four SDI video inputs, as well as inputs for mics and hookups for the headphone and tally light systems.  This all feeds into the control room where AP installed a brand new DATA Video HD video switcher and communication system, along with a mac tower with an Aja Kona card to record the SDI digital output of the video switcher live.  Working closely with the NDHS staff, AP continues to provide an ever-growing, and now digital, production environment for the students to learn in.


Audio Perception Post goes Buck Wild

buckwild

Audio Perception Post has another feature film heading out on to the festival circuit this summer.  Conation Films, Buck Wild, is a feature length zombie, horror, comedy film written by Tyler Glodt and directed by Matthew Albrecht and Tyler Glodt.  AP tackled the dialog editing, some sound effects editing and the entire final dub, mixed in 5.1 in our post sound mix room.  Click "here" to view the official trailer at the Buck Wild web site, or learn more about the cast and crew on their "IMDB" page.

 

      www.AudioPerceptionPost.com

A Study in Gravity with Michael Haussman

GravityLast September Audio Perception was asked to help out New York Artist Samuel Bayer with a live art viewing he was doing in Los Angeles. (Read more here)  This month director, writer and artist Michael Haussman, has called upon AP's services to help with another amazing art project.  Through Michael's film company, Person Films, we worked with him to set up a test of what will be a touring live video art exhibition.  The test involved syncing 5 large video screens and 5 mac mini computers each playing an uncompressed HD video stream.  We set up the display in our Downtown Los Angeles office loft space to simulate how it will be in a museum.  This way, Michael was able to preview the display, and make any changes before he created the final versions.  Learn more about Michael's vision for the piece "here" or view his main web page at http://www.haussman.net/

Music Connection Friday Freebie

MCSDTriggerWant to win a FREE studio bundle worth up to $1200?  Audio Perception is working with Music Connection magazine this month to offer up a great deal to one lucky winner.  We are giving away a studio bundle that includes a Radial Engineering J48 direct box, one copy of Slate Digital's Trigger Platinum drum replacement software, and one Slate Digital FGX mastering plugin.  Click "here" to see more about the bundle or Click "here" to register for the free drawing, but hurry, it ends Thursday May 10th.  The winner will be announced on Friday May 11th on the Music Connection website "here."

AP, JSX Audio and Vintage King make a great team

HowesSMALLHowes3dsmallWhen Canadian based writer/producer super duo Van Howes, (Brian Howes and Jay Van Poederooyen) recently relocated to Los Angeles, they turned to Vintage King LA to help equip their new studio. Soon came the inevitable question, who's going to hook all this gear up.  VKLA's Jeff Ehrenberg asked Audio Perception to come in and work with Brian and Jay to create their dream studio.  Starting while they were still in Canada, AP's David Knauer created a 3D rendering of the studio with all of new equipment mixed together with all of the vintage gear Van Howes would be bring with them.  Working off of that, we installed 4 patch bays and all new custom wiring for the whole studio.  The last piece of the puzzle came together by calling in Jerry Stecking of JSK Audio.  In addition to building a large isolation room to record in, Jerry did a complete acoustic make over on the control room.  He reconfigured the sound control devices that were already present, installed his own bass traps and a very unique clear plexiglass diffuser that retains the incredible view through glass windows that line the rear wall.  With credits from artists such as Avril Lavigne, Hinder, Daughtry, David Cook, Puddle of Mudd, Boys Like Girls, Simple Plan, and Hedley under their belts, Van Howes now have an LA studio to create a new flow of hits from.

See the 3D drawings "here" and check back for final pictures coming soon.

Alibi Music summer update

alibi_logoAmerican Horror Story (Promo) Since launching late last year, the new Alibi Music library has already proven itself to be a major player in the music licensing business. With placements such as American Horror Story, Adventures of Tintin and Lexus, you can see that they are off to a great start. After mastering the entire 1400 song library last year, AP's engineeringlexus team has been busy working on the next set of 1000 songs ready for a summer update. At our studio, we have been depending heavily on the Slate Digital FGX mastering software to give Alibi its incredibly full sound.

Check out the whole Alibi Music library online "here" and more info about the Slate Digital FGX "here."

AP Post Mixes The Ghostmaker

Ghost-makerAudio Perception Post is off to a busy start this year. Just after completing three short films for the festival circuit at the end of 2011, we took on a nice project for the acclaimed conceptual artist and illustrator, Mauro Borrelli (Pirates of the Caribbean, Sleepy Hollow, and Captain America, among many others.) The Ghostmaker, which is Mauro's directing debut, is on its way to Europe where it will show on the big screen across eight countries including 52 screens in Germany. Here in the states, distribution is being handled by Grindstone and Spotlight and it will be seen on TV and DVD. Fotocomics Productions, Mauro's film company, had a great EFX, foley and sound design team work hard over last summer creating a great soundscape for us to start from. With this, APP took the Pro Tools sessions of dialogue, EFX and music, did a whole bunch of prep and organization, then mixed the entire film in 5.1 getting it ready to play on the big screen. We are looking forward to working on Mauro's next film later this year, as well as a film for The Ghostmaker's producer, Ed Polgardy.

Roger Daltrey's Music director calls

tommy2fs_picBusy musician and music director Frank Simes, who's worked with such legends as Mick Jagger, Don Henley, and Stevie Nicks, recently finished a stint with Roger Daltry of The Who, taking "Tommy" on the road. Now he's readying a tour of Quadrophenia with Roger and Pete Townsend. A large part of Frank's work with the tour is arranging instrument and vocal parts for the band, planning and recording any backing tracks for the show, and making sure that everything is running without a hitch. For backing track playback on the tour, AP's Jason Atkinson setup Frank's MacBookPro with MOTU's Digital Performer, several sound libraries, Apogee hardware and various plugins. The portable rig was also setup for any composing Frank might need to do while on tour with Roger. In addition, each concert date was recorded into a Pro Tools rig. Having used Pro Tools in the past, Frank is mainly a long time Digital Performer user, but also needed to start using Pro Tools again to do mixes of the shows. Jason was called in again to provide one of Audio Perception's most sought after services, personal instruction. Frank is now back up to speed on the Avid DAW platform and Quadrophenia is well on its way to hitting the road.


Joel Douek's Studio Upgrade

tallman

Audio Perception's Jason Atkinson and Craig Martin were once again implementing workflow concepts from the Society of Composers and Lyricists Music Technology Symposium.  Joel Douek, another recent L.A. transplant from New York, was the organizer and moderator for the SCL music technology event.  He is an award winning composer and instrumentalist, whose music has appeared in numerous television episodes, documentaries and various national commercials and films.  Some of Joel's recent work include scoring the film "The Tall Man" featuring Jessica Biel, and Flying Monsters 3D for National Geographic.  Joel uses a Pro Tools HD system as his main composing rig, but he wanted a secondary Pro Tools HD system for lay backs and for movie playback via Avid Video Satellite technology.  So Audio Perception went to work setting up the new Pro Tools system, installing the hardware and software, configuring the computer, and getting it all tested and working.  The new setup is working out great for Joel and he's very satisfied with the results.  AP offers a sincere "thanks" to Joel for including us in the SCL panel and we are looking forward to the follow up panel happening later this year.  The first symposium sold out and was received with rave reviews, don't miss the next one.

http://www.joeldouek.com

2012 NAMM Show

NS12_logo-white-bgRadial-module-panel-PowerTube-dds-trans

The 2012 NAMM show was very exciting as expected. There were a lot of new products to show off from brands that Audio Perception represents, like Radial Engineering.  The brand new Radial PowerTube is a 500 series unit that features Class A design, with a low-noise 12AX7 tube and a Jensen transformer.  It is sure to be a must have addition to your 500 series rack or lunchbox. As of this year's NAMM, AP is now a proud authorized reseller for the Slate Digital, Steven Slate Drums and Slate Pro Audio line of products.  This includes the impressive Slate Digital FG-X Virtual Mastering Processor that AP uses for mastering the Alibi Music Library.  Slate Pro Audio also debuted The RAVEN X1 Production Console, showing yet again, that Steven is thinking for the new age of audio production.  With innovative features that meet the needs of the modern audio engineer, in the modern DAW-based recording studio, there's nothing else like it out there.

http://www.namm.org/thenammshow/2012


SoulShock - his studio and X-Factor

Soul-Shock x-factor-logo

Audio Perception provided much needed technical support this month for Los Angeles based music producer, Soulshock, who's been very busy as of lately.  In addition to writing and producing countless tracks for numerous R & B and hip hop artists including Seal, Usher, Mary J. Blige, R. Kelly, Pink, Pitbull and more, producer Soulshock has also been busy working on Simon Cowell's "The X Factor" on FOX Television, producing tracks for various contestants.  The pace was incredibly grueling for the Soulpower team, and down time was out of the question.  AP provided the technical assistance to help keep things running smoothly for the project.  In addition to keeping all of their current Pro Tools rigs in top running shape, we also helped set up an additional system to handle the X Factor work load.


http://www.soulpower.net

Upgrading Composer Jack Wall

Jack-walljackwallcompJack Wall, another Society of Composers and Lyricists event attendee, also wanted to implement some of the concepts discussed at the Music Tech Symposium.  Jack is a very busy and accomplished film and video game composer with many titles under his belt.  One of his most recent projects was the score for Mass Effect 2, from the Canadian game developer Bioware.  For Jack, AP's Jason Atkinson and Craig Martin went to work first taking his studio apart, then they got busy putting it back together, installing a new machine room rack for all four CPUs and new Pro Tools hardware.  Jack's retired Apple Macintosh G5 was put back into service as an Avid Pro Tools HD system that will be used as a monitoring, layback, editing and delivery system which runs in sync with his Mac Pro Logic rig.  The machine room is now clean and organized, the new workflow and signal flow is working out well for Jack, and he's very happy with the studio upgrades.  Stay tuned for Phase 2 in early 2012 as we help Jack build a custom workstation, add new speakers, and add acoustic treatments to tune his room.

http://www.jackwall.net

Matt Sorum's Drac Studios

Matt-sorum Matt-sorum-2AP's tech department went to work on Matt Sorum's personal studio, giving his equipment racks a much needed face-lift.  Matt had just brought in a bunch of new gear such as mic preamps from BAE, effects from Lexicon and numerous 500 series modules.  We were called in to rearrange Matt's four equipment racks by first removing some older equipment, then rearranging the existing units while integrating the new ones.  This required adding in new audio snakes to his patch bay, reorganizing the bays to open up new access there, and re labeling it.  Last we cleaned up a maze of cables behind the racks, and replaced most of the A/C cables with short cords to help keep it tidy.  He's now back to work and loving the new equipment and its ease of access.


http://mattsorum.com/studio

SCL's Kerry Muzzey

Glee

AP is helping busy film and television composer Kerry Muzzy with various upgrades to his studio. Kerry, a recent L.A. transplant from New York, has composed music for commercials and trailers, and various shows on Discovery and History channels, along with music placements in the FOX television show, Glee, and many more.  Kerry is a member of The Society of Composers and Lyricists and after the first time we worked for him, he recommended us to his SCL friend Joel Douek.  Joel created the Music Tech Symposium for SCL and asked David and Jason to represent AP on the panel.  The SCL event was a big success and Kerry wanted to implement some of what the technology panel discussed that evening.  We set up Kerry with a separate host system for his orchestral palette, consisting of a MacPro 8 Core, Vienna Ensemble Pro, and various music libraries.  We used the Vienna Ensemble Pro Server's proprietary network audio/midi solution to stream audio and midi data between his main Logic Pro system and the Host MacPro.  Another addition will be a Mac Mini running Pro Tools 9, setup as a stem recorder/layback machine synced to the Logic system for printing stems and enabling Kerry to deliver a Pro Tools session for final dub stage mixing.  Kerry is thrilled with the studio upgrades and the enhancements to his session workflow.



http://www.kerrymuzzey.com

AES In New York

AES Audio Perception will be attending the 2011 AES show in New York City.  We will be there Thursday, Friday and Saturday and are planning to firm up a few new equipment and software lines to add to our growing list of products.  We offer many lines like Primacoustic, Radial, Sound Anchors, BAE  and more that are currently available in the AP store.  If you want a meeting, or to just want to talk with us, we can be reached at our main AP email - info@audioperception.com or at our main number - 818-693-0134  Hope to see you there.

The SCL and Blake Neely

The Society of Composers & Lyricists On October 6th, the Society of Composers and Lyricists will be holding a music technology event titled "Music Technology for the Working Composer."  AP's David Knauer and Jason Atkinson were asked to be on the panel along with TV and film composer Blake Neely (Pan Am and The Mentalist) and moderator/composer Joel Douek.  The event will last for two hours and will cover an incredible amount of information for experienced and new composers.  Blake has generously offered to bring his entire composing rig to the stage to show how he writes.  The setup consists of a Mac Pro running Logic, another running Pro Tools, a Vienna Ensemble sound source and a PC pumping out sample libraries.  We will be covering many subjects related to tech and composing such as backups, power management, computer configuration, software and hardware, along with answering questions from the audience. Check out the SCL's site here.

Alibi music library set to launch

alibi_logoAP's engineering team have been frantically working for the last three months on an amazing project for a brand new music library.  Jonathan Parks, previously of Beyond Music, has created a unique new library set to launch October 10th.  We have taken on the challenge of mastering the entire library for a smooth consistent sound throughout the entire 1000 plus songs.  ALIBI Music Library will offer a catalog of music exclusively produced and mastered to fulfill the genre, structural, emotional, and editable needs for picture.  It will feature brand new tracks covering all genres, with constant production of new material, as well as a full classical and trailer FX catalog.  Free accurate, creative, and intuitive music searches that are provided to you within minutes of your request.  Most tracks also include multiple alternate ending options for easy editing. AP has also contributed 50 original songs written exclusively for Alibi.  Over the next year, the library is set to double in size as well.  Check it out here.

New York Artist Samuel Bayer's Cocoon

Transitions Exhibition at Siren Studios The Art of ElysiumWe ended the summer with something a little different for Audio Perception.  David Kemp, the art director for New York City-based artist, Samuel Bayer, contacted us to help him out with a special viewing they were setting up in Hollywood.  They built a large art piece to showcase a movie trailer they created for a feature film that B Pictures will be releasing next year.  The large "Cocoon" will house three large LCD TVs and four speaker systems that will allow visitors to pass through the length of the exhibit while viewing and hearing the trailer along the way.  David contacted AP to help design and install the LCDs and speakers.  This was an extra challenge because not only did the A/V system have to be high quality, but it also had to look good as the equipment would become part of the exhibit.  AP counted on the live sound and A/V experience of our tech, Craig Martin, to not only design the system, but to install it as well.  Check out some photo's here.

Update for Kitten Robot Studios

Josie_Cottonalbumkitten_robot_20110927_2035532200We are getting closer to completion of Josie Cotton's Kitten Robot studio.  The wood floor is in and the control room wall treatments are about 70% down.  We still have to build the diffused wall treatments for the live room and we just received a 10 ft Argosy desk that will hold the C24.  The desk also has two rack expanders that hold the BAE and Radial mic preamps, patch bays, Furman Headphone system and other outboard gear.  It also includes a producer's desk section that will hold a 21 inch monitor on an arm down inside the desk that will let the LCD go from lying flat on the surface of the console to raised up into working position.  We're also adding a 27 inch monitor on an arm to be mounted on the surface of the console.  Next week we install the desk and begin to wire the studio for audio, video, computer, and ethernet.  Check out our updated photo's here.


Shelly Palmer and Twitter

shellyfbimageDigital-LivingThis month we had an unexpected emergency support call from Tech Guru Shelly Palmer from "Digital Living".  Shelly had been working on his weekly podcast and was down to the wire with a delivery deadline when he ran into a problem that rendered the whole podcast and many hours of work useless.  As he was searching the internet for a solutions for the problem, he came across our website and decided to make a call to our tech team.  Within 10 minutes we came up with a solution for him that saved the project and he was able to deliver the podcast on time.  A few days later he tweeted to over 6000 follows about Audio Perception and how we helped him out.  Speaking of Twitter, we reached 500 followers this month and we're still going everyday.

Billboard hit maker Josie Cotton's new Studio

JoseyStudioA few months ago, Paul Roessler, Billboard hit maker Josie Cotton's producer and engineer, called AP's David Knauer to discuss a project they were starting. Just as her new single was hitting the BillBoard Dance charts at #12, they had taken on a 2000 Sq ft loft space and wanted to build a studio. Over the next 2 months Audio Perception worked closely with renowned studio designer, Jerry Steckling of JSX Audio, to design, construct, and completely finish a turn-key studio solution that fit their budget. Kitten Robot Studio features a large control room, a live tracking room, a second isolation/amp room, a separate machine room and a large office area. The studio is designed and built from the ground up in an empty loft space so all area's had to be considered including electrical and HVAC. The studio will feature an AVID HD3 running on a mac pro with a C24 console atop an Argosy console. It will also have mic pre's from BAE audio and a large assortment of Radial 500 series modules. Check back soon for the whole story and lots of pictures including a series of photos showing the process from start to finish.


AP, The Product Factory and Primacoustic

Screen_shot_2011-08-01_at_12.45.18_PMProd-Fact1When it came time for one of Los Angeles's busiest video and film post houses to upgrade, The Product Factory called on Audio Perception and Primacoustic to help with their new audio room. The Product Factory has been known for years as the place to go for video editing and finishing, but they would send any audio work out of house. So to keep these project at home, they brought in audio mixer William Levins from Green House Post.  AP was also came in to get an old video playback theater room turned into an audio mix dub stage. We used a variety of Primacoustic Broadway panels for broad band frequency absorption, Max Traps for low end control, a Stratus ceiling cloud system and FlexiFuser rear wall diffusers to turn the untreated room into a finely tuned machine. Check back soon for updated picts of the finished room.

Composer Chris Tyng updates entire studio

WTSanimation_0000_Layer-5-copyIt's been over five years since TV and film composer Chris Tyng hired AP to help him with his state-of-the-art personal studio design by legendary studio guru, Chris Pelonis. If you keep an eye on our work, you will remember the uniqueness of this room. The main attraction is the 14 foot diameter control floor that turns in two directions to accommodate moving the composing equipment or the mixing console into the sweet spot. Check out our pictures of the room when it was first being built "here". Five years later, after many seasons of The O.C., Rescue Me, Knight Rider and Futurerama, Chris is gearing up for his 2nd season of USA network's Covert Affairs as well as a new USA show, Suits. We helped strip the whole studio down to the underground wiring and did a complete equipment update and re-install. Chris is known as a composer that works on the leading edge of technology, and with a 2011 update, his studio lives up to his reputation.

@AudioPerception is launched on Twitter

twitterlogoThis month Audio Perception joins the millions of follows worldwide and started a Twitter account. You can now find us at @AudioPerception. In just a short time we have added 100's of new followers from all over the globe and we are growing all the time. We offer tech news, tech tips, advise, current events, industry info, deals on equipment and much more on a daily basis, right to your computer or smartphone. Follow us to keep up-to-date on all Audio Perception has to offer, and please spread the word.

Misplaced is ready for the festive circuit

Audio Perception Post has been busy with a steady flow of projects. This month we are working on two projects for the summer festival circuit. Misplaced, is a short film written and directed by Greg Lastrapes. (Mickey hates his job, his wife won't shut up, everyone else's life is better than his, and worst of all, he's lost his wallet. Embarking on a nightlong odyssey, laden with the sort of cruelly absurdist twists that he's some to expect from his life-gone-wrong, Mickey tries to find his wallet, but ultimately recovers something far more valuable) We are also in progress on a another short film to be titled Spaghetti Storm. Look for both of these projects to be out later this summer.

The AP store takes on Sound Anchor and Dr. Bott

soundanchorsdr-bottApril is shaping up as a big month for our newly opened store. We just added Sound Anchors stands and DR. Bott to our growing lineup of equipment we carry directly. Sound Anchors offers some of the best speakers stands the industry has to offer. They are just amazing and our clients are eating them up. If you are not familiar with the product, do yourself a favor and check them out. Audio Perception can get you great deals and save you money on, Sound Anchors, DR. Bott, BAE, Primacoustic, Radial, KB keyboards and more.  Check out the "Store" here for monthly deals and up-to-date info on what we can offer you.

A new start for Composer Anton Sanko

Big_LoveFilm and TV composer Anton Sanko has been on a roll in a BIG way. After many seasons of HBO's Big Love, HBO decided to end the show this year.  That hasn't stop Anton though, as he has rolled right into a variety of film and TV project's all releasing this summer and later in the year. When Anton first moved to Los Angeles from New York City a few years ago, Audio Perception was hired to help get his LA Art's district loft studio in shape. But after a few years of being there it was time for an upgrade. AP came in and delivered sound control advise and consultation for construction Anton had done to divide the large open room into three sound proof area's. We also added some new custom wiring, software and Sound Anchor stands for his speakers.

Saxophonist, Songwriter Boney James calls on AP

BoneySaxophonist, songwriter and producer Boney James called on Audio Perception this month for help in his personal studio. He was introduced to us by our friend, Grammy nominated engineer and producer Dave Rideau. ( Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Janet Jackson, Sting, George Duke, TLC, JLo, George Benson, Earth Wind and Fire) Boney needed to update some of the sound control panels in his studio. AP brought in four foot by two foot Primacoustic Broadway panels, and removed his old foam ones. Not only do the Primacoustic Broadway panels offer Boney a much better look, but he will also benefit from the superior acoustic properties that these new panels offer. We are looking forward to building a new relationship with Boney James and will continue to be there for him as his new tech team.

Radial Workhorse 5000 & 500 series modules in stock now

Radial_Workhorse_4d6ec4ef9ac88_300x150jdvpreThe Audio Perception store is now stocking the Radial Workhorse 5000 and all of the 500 series modules. The Radial 500 series is taking the industry by storm by offering an incredible array of quality, innovative products, at a price everyone can afford. The line  includes the EXTC guitar effects interface, PhazeQ that can be used to time-align two microphones for greater clarity and realism, as well as being a very powerful EQ, the famed Komit compressor, The JDX Reactor and X-Amp for the guitar players, the amazing PowerPre, and the JDV preamp, especially made for getting the best instrument level sounds into your system. We also have the Steve Via endorsed JD7 Injector and the industry acclaimed J48 MK2 direct box. Check out our Radial page at the AP "Store" here, and contact us directly for the best deals and an even better price than you can get online  818-693-0134  info@audioperception.com


AP's store opens with 4 new lines

bae-logoprimacousticradialkbcoversThe end of February marks the opening of the Audio Perception Online Store. Clients can now purchase new and used equipment, order custom cables, or even make payments, all online at our website. AP is also very proud to now represent an amazing group of equipment lines. Working directly with these manufacturers will allow AP to pass saving onto our customers, along with better support and faster service. You can now explore the online store for information on products from Primacoustics, Radial Engineering, Tonebone, Bones, Bigshot, BAE, Bittree and KB Keyboards, with more to come.


Home Recording Boot Camp Fest 2011

gsbanner-recordingfestFeb. 27th is the date to join Audio Perception at the Home Recording Boot Camp's Recording Fest 2011. Located in Los Angeles, Recording Fest is a one day Conference – Trade Show – Workshop – Panel event celebrating cool recordings, and the gear, people and techniques that make them. A gathering of people with a passion for making great records, and great music. Guests can check out new gear, learn from the masters and network with other people passionate about recording. The amazing guest panel of producers and engineers will include people like Dave Pensado (Pink, Shakira, Beyonce, Janet Jackson, LL Cool J) and Tony Shepperd, (Madonna, Queen Latifah, Elton John, Kenny Loggins). There will be a raffle with thousands of dollars in prizes, and a trade show with many booths from heavy hitters like Genelec, Neve and Audio Perception. The best part about it is 100% of ticket sales and all net proceeds from the raffle and sponsorship will go to support the recording program at Phoenix House, a program that uses recording and music to help young people recovering from drug addiction. See you there.

AP Post projects in festivals and winning awards

Audio Perception Post has been very busy lately. Two films we worked on last year are on the festival circuit. Anti-Samaritan Hotline is a short film written and directed by A. Tad Chamberlain. The film was mixed at APP's downtown Los Angeles 5.1 mix studio by Tad with assistance by David Knauer. The film has already won 2 awards. The first is the 2010 Shocker Award for Overall Excellence, the Shockfest Film Festival’s top award. ASH was nominated for three Shocker awards in total including Best Director. The other award was the CineKink Select Award for Creative Vision in a Short Film at the CineKink NYC Film Festival. ASH has also been shown at numerous other festivals including CineKink in Vegas, Portland and Los Angeles, D.C. and Chicago, and at the Fetsich Film Festival in Kiel, Germany. Another short film APP just completed in December, The Monstrosity, was already in the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and it's looks like it will be accepted into 2 or 3 more in the next few months. Check back here or at the Audio Perception Post web site for more info.

AP joins NAMM, attends the 2011 NAMM show

nammThis years NAMM show was as successful as ever. Audio Perception spent all four days walking the floor, making new contacts, attending meetings and setting up all kinds of great new things to come for 2011. Stars of the show this year were software developers and products. Following up AVID's big PT9 release at AES, Steinberg released Cubase 6 which is now 64bit for both Man an PC. MOTU also announced a new version of MachFive, version 3, which will be released soon along with free DP Control app for iPhone/iPad. Other notable releases were Izotope's Stutter Edit and Steven Slate Digital's new line of software and plugins. This year AP also became a member of NAMM. This will allow us to connect with manufactures directly and provide our clients with better service and more products. Watch closely for more new relationships to come together in the next couple months.


The end of another great year

We want to take a moment to reflect back on the year and thank all of our clients, staff and associates for helping make it such a great one at Audio Perception. AP has done so much in 2010, from an incredible array of studio installs and updates, to audio mixing and mastering projects. Our original music group had placements on many TV shows and films and our post department updated to a 5.1 surround mix room as we are putting the finishing touches on our loft studio, including our ADR/Foley Booth. We also did a major overhaul of this website featuring many new additions like our online store, expanded photo section and a redesigned home page. Watch for our Forum and many new tech support options to arrive in 2011. So thank you all again for helping to make this a great year, and we're looking forward to working with everyone in the new year to come. See you at NAMM January 13th-16th.


Esquire House update

esquirestudio1The site of incredible technology and impeccable design, the 2010 Esquire house was a huge success. Designer Denise Kuriger and strategic partner Blue Microphones teamed up, to create a one-of-a-kind Recording Studio for Absolut® Vodka that was the center of musical activity throughout the fall.  Visiting the room you were first be drawn to the generous lineup of instruments and amps from Gibson and Fender, Moog, Orange, Korg and Meinl. Next is an impressive array of digital recording and mixing equipment, including a Pro Tools HD3 system from Avid, an SSL Duality console and a complete set of microphones from Blue mics , all augmented by Waves’ Horizon bundle plug-ins; a custom isolation booth from VocalBooth.com; and top-of-the-line contributions from Apple, Argosy, Genelec, Grace Design, Monster Cable, TC Electronic, and Whirlwind. With a $500,000 arsenal of state-of-the-art musical instruments and equipment, the musical talent visiting the Recording Studio was stellar.  Click the picture to see our esquire photo gallery or click "here" to go to the Esquire house Facebook page. View the original article "05/10/210"

Audio Perception at AES

iZotopeAESAudio perception attended the 129th annual AES convention in San Francisco this month.  We spent 4 days meeting with people, making new contacts, and getting a first look at some great new products.  We were also there to witness the release of the much anticipated Avid Pro Tools 9.  Other hits of the pt9show were SSL's AWS console/controller, the AWS 924 and 948, and also their desktop I/O and controller, the Nucleus.  In addition to seeing all of the great new products at the show, we also connected with iZotope and will now include their complete line of software products in our studio/showroom.  Our clients can come in and try the plugins before they decide to purchase.  Having the software in house also expands AP's tech support and teaching possibilities by allowing us to offer better support and education for our clients who use iZotope's plugins.

 

Audio Perception and GC Pro team up to provide full service

GC Pro logoAudio perception has joined up with GC Pro to become one of their System Integrator affiliates. This allows GC Pro and Guitar Center to sell AP's complete array of services directly to their customers. A GC Pro account manager can now group our install, tech, design or support services along side a client's equipment purchase to deliver a full service package. Take a look at our page on the GC Pro Installation web page by clicking "here" and check back to see what projects we are working on with the GC Pro team.


Esquire builds a studio with Blue, SSL, Genelec Avid and AP

esquire_logoAudio Perception was contacted by Kevin Becka (Mix Magazine/Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences) who is helping to put together a project for Esquire magazine in conjunction with Blue Microphones. Each year Esquire builds out a home or living space that is then used to raise money for charities. The house chosen for 2010 is a mansion in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Los Angeles. Last year, Esquire built out a penthouse in Manhattan and included a small recoding studio there. With the studio in New York being such a success, this year they decided to build out a room behind the main house as a complete recording studio, including a control room and vocal booth. Kevin has been working closely with Blue's Tyler Barth to design the room and coordinate all of the equipment. SSL is donating a Duality console, AVID is contributing an HD3 Pro Tools system with the new Avid interfaces, and Genelec is adding in speakers all working together to showcase recordings done with Blue's microphones. Audio Perception is donating it's time to integrate all the equipment and get the studio up and running. We'll be adding some updates here soon including more information and photos as the project unfolds. You can read more about the project by clicking "here". View the updated article "11/21/2010"


Original music placements from the Beyond Music Library

Gullivers_TravelsOver the past few months we have had quite a few more placements in TV and film from Audio Perception's original music collection.  Working with the Beyond Music library, we have 15 songs that they shop to movies and TV. Aside from the Capitol One and Travelosity commercial placed earlier this year,  our song "Steel Buns" was  also placed in an NCAA promotion and the movie trailer for "Gulliver's Travels". AP has also had many placements of an original song named "here" to hear the song.

Transcenders are getting ready for 3 shows this season

Gossip_Girl_for_MenuNBC's OutsourcedThe AP crew was out at the Transcenders studio this month to help them get ready for the new TV season. Not only are they starting another season of "Gossip Girl" but they are also doing the new NBC show "Outsourced" and it looks they are taking a third show too. To prepare for the heavy work load, Audio Perception's Jason Atknson helped them complete the upgrade of their Studio C Pro Tools HD system, allowing the Transcenders to work on three Pro Tools systems at once. We also cleaned up the other two systems to ensure smooth sailing in the months to come.

Mastering ringtones for Verizon, LG and Red Bull

MusikvergnuegenAudio Perception's Engineering team was put to work again this month to assist Musikvergnuegen with a custom ring tone project for Verizon. This was a challenging job for AP as we had to master the ring tones to get the volume and sound optimized for playback on a cell phone. In the past we have worked on other projects similar to this for Musikvergnuegen, including ringtones for LG phones and a project that involved mastering the ring tones and all of the sounds for a Red Bull themed mobile browser.

Michelle Johnson's new audio book self-help CD

Michelle JohnsonKickstart_Your_ConsciousnessAP's Jason Atkinson was at the engineering helm of Michelle Johnson's new audio book self-help CD, "Exercises for Spiritual Growth". When Michelle, who specializes in spiritual well being and alternative healing, decided to produce her first CD, she contacted Jason and they began the pre-production work and then did some test recordings for the initial script. Once Michelle had the script refined and ready to go, the recording sessions and subsequent editing sessions commenced, and were completed with a few weeks. If you click here, you can learn more about Michelle and "Exercises for Spiritual Growth" at her website. Michelle also recently produced "The Future of Alternative Health". The symposium, held in Los Angeles, featured guest speakers and panelists from a wide variety of alternative health fields and specialties. Jason handled all the live audio, including system planning and setup, and engineering.


Composer David Baerwald makes a move

DavidB1This month we have another studio move on our hands.  As TV and film composer David Baerwald was getting ready for a new season of the CW's series Life Unexpected, he decided to move his private studio to a new location that would better serve his needs.  David is a multi-talented songwriter, producer, musician, TV/film composer, and even an artist himself.  His credits range from Sheryl Crow, ABC's October Road, Waylon Jennings, and the Bangles front woman Susanna Hoffs, to country star LeeAnn Rimes and Luciano Pavarotti.  Headed up by Audio Perception's Jason Atkinson, we sent in a team to design a plan for the new location and then oversee the equipment being moved.  Next we added a new Apple Mac Pro running in 64bit mode, hosting Vienna Ensemble Pro, and updated all of his software on two computers.  Last we got the two Macs talking to each other and sharing audio through the Apogee Symphony System.  David was back up and running in just a few days and starting to score for the new season.

Entering phase two with Post Modern Group

We had a very successful phase one at PMG last month.  Chief engineer Chris Potter is very busy now mixing on the new Mac Pro and Digidesign's Pro Tools HD 8.  This month we are entering phase two, designing the new room.  It was decided that to make more space for clients, PMG is moving the whole studio to a new larger room.  This will give us a chance to really design a great space instead of just revamping the old one.  Check back soon as we will be adding photo's and more info about the design and install of the room as it progresses.  View the original article "02 May 2010"


Original song placed in a Capital One commercial

Cap1 Travilocity In early 2009, Audio Perception was asked by Jonathan Parks, the VP/Music Supervisor for the Beyond Music Library, to write three tropical island type songs.  He asked that they have a steel drum type sound and a "vacation on the beach" like feel. David Knauer got together with award winning producer Carl McGregor at his private studio, and the results were three tracks named "Steel Buns," "Pastafarian" and "Bumboclot" (Click on a song name to here it). David recorded and mixed the tracks with Carl playing all the instruments. Steel Buns was used in a national Capital One commercial this month and was also placed in a Travelocity commercial back in the summer of 2009. You can view either commercial by clicking on a video. Audio Perception has a variety of other songs in the Beyond library that can be heard by clicking on our "Media" page in the main menu.

Starting phase one of the design and install at Post Modern

This month we begin what will be an on going project this summer with Post Modern Group.  Post Modern has offices in Burbank, Irvine, Las Vegas and London.  We will be working with Post Modern Creative, a division based out of the Irvine CA office that does all of the audio and video production for Post Modern.  We met with chief engineer and mixer Chris Potter to discuss the needs for their audio mixing studio.  To accomplish their goals we planned a complete redesign and rebuild of the room.  Since this would take a bit of time to design and complete, and they had some immediate goals, we decided to do the project in two phases.  The studio was running two Pro Tools rigs on G4s, one Mix system with version 6 and one 002 running version 7.  So this week we are bringing in two turnkey Mac Pros with all software and hardware pre-installed by Audio Perception.  One is an 8-core with an HD3 and the other is a 4-core with a Digidesign  003, both running version 8.  We are setting up the computers and testing them ahead of time to keep install time to a minimum as Post Modern's schedule is very busy.  Stay tuned for phase two including stripping the room of all equipment, wiring, furniture, and wall treatments and then starting over. View the updated article "14 June 2010"


Los Angeles composer Elia Cmiral adds Pro Tools

A week after finishing Richard Marvin's machine room, we got a call from TV and film composer Elia Cmiral, an associate of Richard's.  Elia, whose credits include Ronin, Stigmata, Wrong Turn and more, wanted to add a new Pro Tools HD system to his private studio.  Elia currently works in Digital Performer, but wanted the option of having and engineer mix cues at his studio.  He hired Audio Perception to plan, install and integrate a Pro Tools HD2 system.  In the process, Jason went in also stripped out a bunch of old unused cabling and completely re-wired his setup to run more efficiently.  While Elia still has the option of having projects mixed at commercial facilities around Los Angeles, he can now have his cues professionally mixed at his own studio.

Rick Marvin gets a complete machine room re-wire

OC_MarvinWAT_MarvinBusy film and television composer Richard Marvin (Without A trace, Three Rivers, In Treatment, The O.C., Six Feet Under) finally had a bit of down time this week, so he called in Audio Perception.  AP's Jason Atkinson has worked with Rick for many years now helping to keep his studio running and keeping it up-to-date with new technology.  Over the years David has also worked closely with Rick's music editor, Scott Schirle, helping out with music editing duties and sitting in on the dubbing  stage for shows like "The O.C.".  Rick used to have all his equipment in two very large "quiet" racks in his studio.  After building out a separate machine room last year, these large racks were no longer needed.  The plan this week was for Jason to come in and clean up the machine room by removing the old racks, and implementing and installing two new 42 space steel server racks.  All the gear had to be removed, cleanly re-racked, and then re-wired into the new ones.  The machine room is now more organized, much easier to cool, and much easier to tech.

Music veteran Jane McNealy builds a new website

Music veteran Jane McNealy is building a new website.  Jane has had a long career ranging from working as a staff writer (composer/lyricist) for Mercury records, Liberty records and All For One Publishing, as well as scoring many films and TV projects.  Under the wing of famed orchestrator and pop icon, Harold Battiste, she has over 200 songs published and recorded, not counting special material & music from musicals.  Speaking of musicals, when Jane decided to create a new website for a project see is working on, she turned to Audio Perception for help.  AP has been helping Jane with many projects over the past 6 years.  We maintain her recording studio, give her private lessons in Pro Tools, MIDI programming and recording/mixing, and also help with audio engineering of her sessions when they get intense.  Jane hired AP to work with her on her new project of building a website that lets someone follow the process of making a musical from conception to completion.  She is using a play that she has co-written with Alice Kuhns called "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" (based on the book by Frank R. Stockton) to demonstrate the process.  We met with Jane this week to help her design the site and create a road map that our resident web guru Craig Martin will be using to create the site.  Stay tuned for updates and a sneak preview as it comes together.

AP helps a private client in Irvine CA move his studio

Irvine_After_ThumbIrvine_Before_Thumb_In March, Audio Perception got a call from a client in Irvine CA who needed help with a unique project.  We install studio's all the time but we don't get asked to move one often.  Our client had a studio in a home he was selling so he obtained a Chris Pelonis designed studio in a commercial building that recently became available and wanted our help moving in.  First we went in to dismantle his home studio and wiring.  The next day, we loaded it into a moving truck and cleared out the old studio.  This was a delicate job as there were lots of tube gear along with speakers and furniture.  We finished the day by getting everything moved into the new studio.  We then spent the next week installing all new wiring, a new patch bay system, adding a producers desk and more.  You can view pictures of the complete install by clicking "here" or check out the before and after photos "here".

Los Angeles composer Mark Cross updates his system

Last_Comic_LogoLos Angeles based composer Mark Cross called in Audio Perception this month to help him update his studio.  Mark has been busy lately working on projects like Last Comic Standing, and contributing music to American Idol and HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.  Mark finally had a free day so he called us to come in.  Jason Atkinson is AP's DAW expert, so he went through both Mark's main Logic composing rig and his Pro Tools computer updating all software and plug-ins.  We also brought his system software up-to-date.  By the end of the day he was back at it.  You can learn more about Mark Cross by clicking "here".

AP Post cleans up audio on a live Guns & Roses video

GandR_Video

Audio Perception Post got a call this week from video editor Eli Green to ask for help with a Guns & Roses project he is working on.  Eli was hired by Palmeria Pictures to edit a promotional video for DeLeon Tequila featuring a live performance by Guns and Roses.  The problem was, the only sound recording they had came from the on-camera microphones and was far from optimum.  After receiving a last minute distress call from Eli, we grabbed an OMF file he had placed on our client FTP and then got to work.  Using various filters, EQs, and other Pro Tools plug-ins, we were able to mix together and manipulate several tracks.  We then placed the finished output back on our FTP for Eli to grab.  Before he had finished the video's edit, he had a audio track that could live up to the picture quality.  Click Guns and Roses to see an excerpt from the video.


David Mixes the title for a new show on the "O" network

David Knauer was asked by Emmy award winning composer Dominc Messinger to mix the title music track for an new show coming out on the "O" network.  The track was composed by Dominic using MOTU's Digital Performer.  His studio is setup so live sequences can play out of logic or performer right into the Pro Tools system.  David then mixed the track in Pro Tools with realtime playback from Digital Performer.  The mix goes digitally to a PC running Sound Forge that Dominic uses to library all him mixes.

Human Worldwide takes on a new tech Company in LA

Human_LogoHuman Worldwide has asked Audio Perception to take over all tech services for their Santa Monica office and it's 5 studio rooms.  We now maintain all of their computers and equipment.  Our duties include running all of the on-site and off-site backups and clones, installing all new hardware and software, and much more.  We are also on call 24/7 for emergency tech issues so that all of their rooms can keep the music flowing.

The Art Institute of Phoenix receives a studio face lift

AI_LogoWe started out the year with a road trip.  The Art Institute of Phoenix Arizona, called on Audio Perception to help with technical problems they were having in their multi-media recording studio.  The studio was also in need of an equipment and wiring face lift.  For their Audio Post for Multi-Media program, neither the headphone distribution, nor video playback systems were functioning properly.  AP went in and completely rewired audio, headphone, and video.  We also added some updated equipment including two VESA-mount arms, allowing the two main Pro Tools LCD monitors to be ergonomically positioned for optimal viewing, and a video splitter sending picture to multiple rooms.  All this work made the studio much more flexible and organized.